Demand propels hospital additions in Loris

Loris Community Hospital is set to open its new emergency department and intensive care unit next week, one of several area hospitals expanding in response to a growing need for emergency care along the Grand Strand.

The Loris ICU and the emergency department were treating more patients than they were designed to handle, hospital spokeswoman Celeste Bondurant-Bell said. For example, the emergency department was designed to treat about 12,000 patients a year but was seeing more than 20,000, she said. The new ER and ICU will open Wednesday.

"The purpose of it really was to meet the increasing need," Bondurant-Bell said. "Each year we steadily see an increase in the use of the emergency department. The acuity of the patient is increasing, therefore the enhancements in the ICU were desperately needed."

Other area hospitals are dealing with the same issue. Grand Strand Regional Medical Center is expanding its ER and adding more beds; Conway Medical Center, which finished an expansion in July 2009, is renovating its emergency department; and Seacoast Medical Center in Little River is building a 50-bed patient tower.

"There's just a need in the community to expand our services. ... It's based on just our population," said Joan Carroza, spokeswoman for Grand Strand Regional Medical Center. "We have an aging population, and we have a large tourist population. There's just a great need for medical services."

At Loris Community Hospital, the new emergency department is about triple the size of the old one at 16,000 square feet with 12 treatment areas, four fast-track treatment rooms, two trauma rooms, a negative pressure room for treating infectious diseases and a secure hold room. The intensive care unit will have two more treatment areas than before and will have upgraded technology, with digital patient records available at bedside and improved security and family waiting areas.

Construction on the Loris hospital addition began in January 2009 and adds more than 51,000 square feet. The project, which also includes a new chapel, family waiting areas and the relocation of the digital radiography department, cost just more than $18 million.

"Patient privacy has always been a concern for us; however, limiting space sometimes prevented having full privacy for patients," Bondurant-Bell said. The added space from the expansion will improve patient privacy, she said.

The old emergency department will be renovated and converted to house medical records and radiology. A use hasn't been determined yet for the old ICU, she said.

"I think the expansion has really raised the bar on emergency care and intensive care in the county," Bondurant-Bell said.

With overall population growth, an increasing number of retirees moving to the area and baby boomers aging, there is a greater need for medical care on the Grand Strand, Carroza said.

Grand Strand Regional Medical Center is amid a $54 million expansion. The emergency department, which will be expanded in phases, will add 12 treatment bays and a helipad where helicopters transporting patients in critical condition can land. The hospital is also building a two-story addition that will be home to cardiac services and add 50 beds to the hospital. It should be completed by November 2011. The emergency department expansion should be complete by January 2011, with the renovations to the existing emergency department to be completed by December 2011.

The hospital sees about 67,000 patients in the emergency department every year and has seen a high number of patients this summer, operating at close to capacity and briefly diverting noncritical patients once earlier this summer because it couldn't accept any more patients, Carroza said.

Seacoast Medical Center, which has been strictly an emergency department and outpatient surgery center, has also seen a steadily increasing number of patients. Seacoast will add 50 inpatient beds so patients can stay at the hospital. The project is under way and ahead of schedule, with the new building scheduled to open in early 2011, Bondurant-Bell said.

Conway Medical Center is redesigning its emergency department to help meet the increase in patients it has seen, said spokeswoman Julie Rajotte, adding that the hospital expects the number of patients will continue to rise.

"We're moving towards the point of expanding that emergency department and making the workflow work much better ... allowing us to accommodate the growing numbers of individuals," she said.

The expansion, which comes on the heels of an addition completed in January 2009, should reduce wait times and increase privacy, she said.

The hospital is doubling the number of exam rooms, adding seven special needs rooms and four minor treatment areas as part of the renovation. The project is in its second phase, with new waiting areas and a new nurses' station already completed. The entire project should be completed next summer.