Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes…

Last week, I talked about our summer Town Hall meetings, what their purpose is, and why it’s important for our workforce to be informed about what’s happening in our healthcare system. This week, I want to outline some of facility improvements here at our hospital as well as some other changes happening outside of our medical campus.

Over the last several months, the top two floors of the William E. Kahlert Physicians Pavilion North have been under major construction as we prepare to make it the home for a large physician practice and an ambulatory surgery center for Chesapeake Urology. The surgery center on the sixth floor will be up and running in a few months, and the practice will have a brand-new office suite on the fifth floor. The practice currently has three doctors on our campus and this expansion will allow them to increase to 10 to 15! This is a great step forward for our medical campus.

The new NICU officially opened in June and if you haven’t stopped by to look, I highly recommend that you do so! I am extremely proud of the NICU team, who worked incredibly hard, was very patient with leadership, and collaborated with the architects to design the space. The new NICU provides individual, private spaces for babies and their families. Each of our new 13 rooms will allow for an individualized environment in terms of lighting, temperature, and sound. For more information, check out one of my recent blog posts. It took us a while to finish this project, but I believe the final result was worth the wait.

Speaking of new, we have a modern and beautiful Orthopaedics office, located on the seventh floor of our Physician Pavilion West. It’s modeled after our Family Care Associates Practice in Pavilion North and it allows us to take walk-in patients, during weekdays and evenings, for injuries. So, let’s say one evening you twisted your ankle and you don’t want to go to the emergency department (ED), now you can go straight to the Orthopaedics office (this practice does not offer the same services as an emergency department).

Recently, we also signed a contract to partially own a one-room ambulatory surgery center (ASC) in Cockeysville. We’ve been fighting the impetus to create a free-standing ACS because we want to do the right thing by the community — Baltimore has plenty of operating rooms, with one on almost every street corner.

We are becoming part-owners in the surgery center because we do not receive additional revenue when we do more surgery at the hospital and because the patients don’t want to pay higher hospital rates when they can get the surgery for less in an ASC.

Our OR Simulation Lab is a recent addition that is greatly beneficial to our surgeons and patients. The lab is a comprehensive training center, which consists of a lab focused on task-based training and replica hospital rooms created to imitate real-life settings. Participants can train for almost any medical situation from inserting an IV, to performing complex surgery, to practicing difficult conversations with patients. The Simulation Center is a critical part of GBMC Healthcare System’s continuing education program which helps the staff grow their skills and adapt to evolving medical techniques and technology.

I’ve been promising a gym on the campus for several years and this week we held an open house for our new Fitness & Wellness Center. Some of you remember that we had a gym on our campus many years ago, which was converted to a surge center. Now it’s been converted back into a gym. Starting August 6, this facility, located by the South Chapman building, will be open 24/7 and is for employees ONLY at a cost of $9.00 per pay period. In the past, many employees said that they would like a place to exercise before or after work. We heard you and I want to thank Anna-Maria Palmer, Vice-President of Human Resources, and Stacey McGreevey, Vice-President of Support Services at GBMC HealthCare, for making this happen.

We are officially opening our Kosher Hospitality Room this September. The pantry, located by the main entrance of the hospital, was built to meet the dietary needs of Observant Jews who follow a Kosher diet and who have come to the hospital to visit a loved one. It’s evident that GBMC serves many Orthodox and kosher-observant Jews and the main goal of the on-premises kosher food pantry is to help ease the hunger and lift the spirits of concerned family members whose relatives are suffering from illness or injury.

Lastly, we’re thrilled about the grand opening of the new Kroh Endoscopy Center, slated for next year. The Center will be located where Sherwood Surgical Center was previously situated. It’s still under construction. There will be more to come on this as we get closer to the grand opening in January 2019.

It’s safe to say that it’s been a busy year.  I hope you are as excited as I am about the changes taking place with our healthcare system.  Let me know what you think.


Play Ball!!!!

Despite the inclement weather, we held our third annual GBMC Night at The Yard Event. I hope all of those who attended the event had a lot of fun! Having the Orioles win that night, with Tim Beckham (our special guest for our Birdland Social Media Night) hitting a home-run added more joy to an already festive event.