Work has begun on the southeast corner of Cox South to make way for construction of the new critical care unit, which is set to open next year.
When the new unit opens, it will complement the new Emergency Department by adding 24 new critical care beds. Dr. John Duff says that in planning sessions five years ago, trends were predicting a shortage of critical care beds by 2010. Those predictions are now coming true as southwest Missouri’s population grows and greater numbers of acute patients are coming into the facility.
“We decided that now is the right time to fix that,” Dr. Duff says. “This will help support the new ED; we anticipate that with the growth of the Emergency Department we’ll see even more critically ill and injured patients.”
Construction begins this fall and the $17 million facility is expected to be complete in fall 2011.
The beds will be located on the ground floor in the same corridor as Cox South’s current critical care beds. The unit will extend to the south along National from the current unit. The construction will create 27 new beds, but it will also involve losing three surgical ICU beds, leaving a net gain of 24. It will bring the total number of adult critical care beds to 76.
“We’ve worked hard to ensure that patients return to their home environments as soon as they can and to keep beds free for the next patients,” Dr. Duff says. “By adding these beds, we’ll be able to accept patients more rapidly from the ED and eliminate delays.”
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