MMC CONSIDERS NEW BUILDING
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 -- 1:32 PM
Memorial Medical Center in Neillsville is exploring the possibility of building a new facility.CEO Scott Polenz says their current building is old: it was built in 1954. While the clinic received a major overhaul in 2003, other parts of the facility have been showing their age.
Nothing is ?set in stone,? but MMC expects to consult with an architectural firm in the next few months to initiate a master planning process, Polenz says.
Their designation as a ?critical access hospital? will probably require them to stay at the same location.
"We probably wouldn't qualify to go someplace else," he explains, "so, we felt it would be some sort of add-on to our current facility."
MMC currently has a 25-bed hospital, but on average, only around eight beds are filled.
It?s possible the construction project could actually reduce the number of in-patient rooms, but increase their capacity for out-patient procedures.
The cost is up in the air, but will be "nothing to sneeze at," according to Polenz.
"It's normally about $1 million per hospital room, if you're building a brand new facility. I've seen some other hospitals from $20 to $40 million, for small, critical access hospitals."
Polenz stresses it's early, and the master planning process will bring the projected costs into focus.
The project would be funded by a combination sources, including donations from their newly formed foundation and borrowing.
Aside from modernizing an aging facility, the goal would be to shore up MMC?s market share by encouraging would-be patients to get procedures done locally, as opposed to going to larger facilities.
"60% (of market share) is kind of the goal number, and we're at about 40%, so we know there's room for growth there," he says, adding studies have shown electronic medical records and new construction are among the best means for smaller hospitals to improve their usership.
While we reported over the weekend that MMC hoped to have the facility built by 2015, Polenz says that project is probably a bit too aggressive.
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