YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – With a larger patient volume, Mercy Health – St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital opened an area with 17 additional beds in an intermediate care unit last week.
There was a need for expansion at St. Elizabeth even before the closure of Insight Medical Center and Hospital Trumbull in Warren and Insight Rehabilitation Hospital Hillside in Howland, said Kathy Harley, St. Elizabeth president.
Prior to the intermediate care unit, there was a need for more space for patients who leave the emergency department but still need an intermediate level of care, Harley said. The other options were intensive care and the medical surgical department.
“It has allowed us to move patients, once they’re admitted in the ED [emergency department], to get them out of the ED and up in their own bed much sooner, much quicker.”
Harley said as a Level One trauma unit, the only one between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, patients come to St. Elizabeth with some of the most complex traumas, and it can mean a longer stay in the hospital.
Additionally, St. Elizabeth is a regional referral center. When other community hospitals don’t provide a certain service, patients are sent to the Youngstown hospital.
Co-morbidities and the Mahoning Valley’s aging population can mean a longer stay for some. The new unit offers another option to provide the right level of care for patients.
“Not everybody’s in intensive care, but most people are sick enough these days that there aren’t so many in medical surgical, the third and least acute [category],” Harley said. “We see most people fitting in that middle one.”
The 17 new beds began opening slowly last Monday, and by Friday the first 10 opened were already being used. The hospital took an area of the hospital that was previously being leased by an outside entity, gave it a facelift and outfitted it with new equipment. The beds are in private rooms, with nurse-to-patient ratios suitable for the condition of patients. Nurses often follow the patient from intensive care into the unit “so the nurses know the patient better and the patient knows the nurses,” Harley said. “It is a win-win on both sides for certain, because that continuity of care is important.”
Harley said a nurse who has cared for the same patient for several hours or days is more likely to quickly recognize a more subtle change in condition.
The intermediate care unit isn’t the only new addition at St. Elizabeth. Harley said the hospital has expanded its neuro interventional radiology stroke program, adding a second doctor due to the large number of stroke patients in the Valley. Additionally, the hospital is adding more spine and brain surgeons.
In addition to neuro interventional radiology, St. Elizabeth already had a large body interventional radiology program. Harley said the intervention radiology program has been expanded into a second suite, going from three patient bays for pre- and post-operation to seven bays.
Harley said interventional radiology, which is minimally invasive, allows the hospital to do a large number of procedures, including removing blood clots, performing liver biopsies, stopping gastrointestinal bleeds and even treating some cancers.
St. Elizabeth also is building a 16-bed neuro intensive care unit, a large upgrade from the four bays with an overflow area currently dedicated to neuro intensive care. It will be located in the area where acute rehabilitation used to be housed, before the opening of the Mercy Health Rehabilitation Hospital on Belmont Avenue, a joint project with Lifepoint Rehabilitation.
Specially built to allow closer monitoring of patients, the neuro intensive care unit is being designed with input from the nurses who will work there. Harley said she expects it to open in late October or early November.
The 60-bed, 66,000-square-foot Mercy Health Rehabilitation Hospital opened in December.
“It’s a beautiful facility, and what they have got, what they have done with the gym and the equipment is really state of the art, especially for a lot of those with spine injuries,” Harley said.
Harley said St. Elizabeth has 42 beds dedicated to behavioral health, and Mercy Health and Lifepoint expect to complete a 72-bed behavioral health unit on Belmont by the end of the year.
Pictured at top: One of the 17 new intermediate beds recently added at Mercy Health – St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.