Hospital to update facilities masterplan

By: 
Steve Lyon
What Weiser Memorial Hospital will look like in five or 10 years is the objective of a master facilities plan the hospital is pursuing.
 Hospital trustees recently approved spending up to $49,900 to hire an architectural firm to do the overall plan. 
 The result will be a blueprint of sorts that will show the best utilization of space and services and guide any future expansion of the current hospital’s footprint.
 Hospital CEO Steve Hale said the hospital is looking at two potential vendors to do the masterplan but had not picked one. 
 He and other managers at the hospital wanted additional clarification from the two firms before choosing one to award a contract. Both are in the $40,000 range as far as fees for services.
 The facilities plan will also include a complete assessment of the plumbing and wiring systems in the facility, which dates to the 1950s. 
 Hale said the facilities plan will give trustees and hospital administrators a better idea of space utilization and future needs to serve the healthcare needs of the communiity.
 If the hospital ever wanted to build a surgical wing, where would be the best place for it? How many beds does the hospital really need? Is there a better location for the lab for better patient access?
“This is planning that all hospitals do,” Hale said.
 The contracted architectural firm will gather data as part of the master plan. They will interview staff and gain knowledge of the community, demographics.
 It will be up to hospital administrators and board members to determine what the priorities are in the plan. 
 A masterplan for the hospital was done in 2002 but never acted on, Hale said.
 “We need to create a plan that we can execute,” he said. 
 He said some of the data that was collected for that facilities plan might be used in the new plan. 
 Whichever firm is selected to do the plan could use the data and update it instead of starting from scratch.

 

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Signal American

18 E. Idaho St.
Weiser, ID 83672
PH: (208) 549-1717
FAX: (208) 549-1718
 

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