Lawrence + Memorial Hospital to expand, renovate Emergency Department
New London — Lawrence + Memorial Hospital is ready to embark on an $81.6 million expansion and renovation of its Emergency Department, a project that will include an upgrade of the hospital’s electrical power system and the replacement of an underground storage tank, hospital officials said this week.
The project, which could take up to four years to complete, will proceed in phases, with the emergency room remaining open in its current location.
Construction will begin in the fall.
Denise Fiore, L+M’s chief operating officer, said the project calls for a dedicated emergency room entrance and new space for ambulances; an expanded waiting room; 12 additional private rooms, including two dedicated to psychiatric care; three triage rooms; and areas newly designed for physicians and nurses. The renovations will result in 40 private rooms, including eight dedicated to psychiatric care.
L+M, which has 280 beds, averages 120 to 130 emergency room visits a day and, along with Pequot Health Center, its emergency-care affiliate in Groton, handles about 88,000 visits annually.
The renovations are about enhancing the emergency services L+M currently provides rather than accommodating more patients, officials said.
“The ED is really the front door to the hospital, the first impression a community gets,” said Mario Vieira, Yale New Haven Health system’s executive director of design and construction. “Now, it’s a little like a bus station; patients sometimes are being treated in hallways.”
He said private treatment areas are becoming the industry standard for emergency rooms.
For all the focus on the Emergency Department renovations, the electrical power upgrade represents the greater share of the project’s cost — $52 million. It will involve the installation of two new generators, which will be hidden from view in space above the emergency room, giving the building’s exterior the appearance of a three-story structure.
“This will be an upgrade to both normal and emergency power,” said Bob Palumberi, L+M’s head of facilities and public safety. “Normal (capacity) is pretty much tapped out; we don’t have redundancy,” or the ability to activate back-up service, if necessary, he said.
Given hospitals’ increasing reliance on technology, L+M is sure to require more and more power to operate equipment and keep that equipment cool.
“Hospitals grow whether you’re aware of it or not,” Vieira said.
Yale New Haven Health, with which L+M affiliated in 2016, has contributed expertise and design help for the Emergency Department project as well as the funding, part of its promise to invest $300 million in L+M capital improvements over time. Including the investment in this project, about two-thirds of the total has now been spent or committed, according to Michael O’Farrell, L+M’s director of public relations.
Fiore said L+M officials met last month with residents living in the hospital neighborhood, bounded by Faire Harbour Place and Ocean and Montauk avenues, to address any concerns about traffic disruptions and noise during construction. In a letter to neighboring property owners, Patrick Green, L+M’s chief executive officer, said the hospital will install temporary fencing along Faire Harbour Place from the L+M parking garage entrance to Ocean Avenue to provide shelter from construction activity.
L+M partnered with Payette, a Boston architectural firm, on the design of the project, which A/Z Corp. of North Stonington will build. New London's Planning and Zoning Commission approved the site plan last week.
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