Franciscan St. Margaret Health-Dyer will undergo a $10.2 million renovation over the next year in its emergency, surgical and laboratory departments.
The project started late last month, and it is expected to last a year.
It will expand the emergency department by 3,500 square feet, by designing new specialized patient examination rooms, an isolation room for infectious patients, doubling the size of its trauma room, adding a private behavioral suite as well as renovating existing space.
“The new design will be targeted at meeting the ever-growing population in south Lake County and to help achieve our continual growth in the emergency services and surgical services areas,” John Mentgen, hospital executive vice president and chief operating officer, said.
The department will receive new monitors, a new nurse call and tracking system, and redesign the nurses’ station to provide visibility of all examination rooms.
Dan Ratko, hospital project manager of construction, said the work will not affect work in the departments.
“The project will be done in phases — everything will remain open while it is being completed,” he said.
Laboratory department improvements will look at optimizing efficiencies to make processes faster. In the surgery department, the hospital will construct a new, 760-square-foot advanced surgical suite, new preadmission testing space, expand the sterilization process for surgical instruments and upgrade the physician locker room.