By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

On Feb. 5, when Roper Hospital in downtown Charleston opened its newly expanded emergency department, it was not a moment too soon, according to Dr. John Walters, the emergency department’s medical director.

At 12,000 square feet, the new $1.2-million emergency department is about three times larger than the previous version and includes wider hallways, 30 beds (up from 22), the latest diagnostic equipment, larger stations for nurses and other features that enable the staff to treat patients more comfortably, quickly and efficiently, Walters said.

Roper also built a new 5,400-square-foot admitting area for emergency patients.

Considering the Lowcountry’s growing population and the rise of hospital emergency departments as primary providers of medical care for uninsured patients here and across the nation, Roper’s expanded emergency facility is a necessity, Walters said.

Omaha, Neb.-based architecture, engineering and consulting firm HDR Inc. designed the expanded emergency department. Bovis Lend Lease was the contractor. Walters described the upgraded facility as “user friendly” because of the extra space and the traffic-flow design.

Last year, Roper Hospital’s emergency department treated more than 28,000 patients in about one-quarter of the space it now has. When the renovation-expansion project got underway 10 months ago, the number of beds got slashed from 22 to 10, said Wanda Brockmeyer, director of emergency services for all Roper St. Francis Healthcare facilities throughout the Lowcountry.

Fifty percent of all Roper Hospital admissions come through the emergency department, she added.

Nationally, there were almost 114 million emergency room visits in 2003, up from 90 million a decade earlier, the Associated Press reported last June.

Roper’s newly expanded emergency department is built to accommodate the community “nicely for at least 10 years,” Brockmeyer said.

Each of the emergency department’s 30 beds is in a private room equipped with patient monitoring equipment, plus a telephone and a television.

Additionally, the facility includes a decontamination room for patients involved in chemical accidents.

A new X-ray room, new digital radiology equipment and the latest cardiac monitoring equipment also are included in the new facility.

In other Roper St. Francis Healthcare news, Charlotte, N.C.-based health care architecture firm FreemanWhite and Charleston-based architects LS3P Associates Ltd. are designing Roper’s new 85-bedroom hospital in northern Mount Pleasant. It will take nine to 12 months to design the hospital and another two years to build it, said Franklin Brooks, chairman of FreemanWhite.

Roper St. Francis officials selected FreemanWhite and LS3P as the hospital’s architecture team last month.

The 200,000-square-foot, $123-million facility located on 78 acres of the Carolina Park development will feature women’s services, inpatient and outpatient surgery, intensive and critical care units and 24-hour emergency care.

Dennis Quick covers health and wellness for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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