Fairview Park Hospital begins $10.2M ICU expansion

Dublin, GA - Fairview Park Hospital has officially begun its yearlong ICU expansion project, which is projected to be completed later this Spring. After analyzing local and facility needs, HCA recognized the vital role Fairview plays in Dublin-Laurens County and the surrounding communities as the regional referral hospital of middle Georgia, which led them to invest in a 50% expansion of the hospital’s ICU. This expansion project will take Fairview’s current ICU from sixteen beds to twenty four, an addition of eight beds overall for critical patients. This addition will have a positive impact not only on the Dublin-Laurens County community, but the rural communities Fairview serves and beyond.

“Our ICU is at capacity almost every single day, largely because we serve a much larger community than Dublin-Laurens County”, stated Don Avery, FACHE, President and CEO of Fairview Park Hospital. “We serve nearly a dozen surrounding counties, and we need to be positioned to better meet some of those higher level needs as the regional referral hospital in middle Georgia. This will have a significant impact on the community. We’ve temporarily taken part of our third floor offline to begin the expansion as we bring our new ICU beds online, along with areas for our support services. We will also be updating the remainder of the patient rooms across the third floor, which will greatly improve patient experience, comfort, and overall aesthetics of that floor. Patients and visitors won’t be greatly affected by this renovation as all construction areas are blocked off and are not visible to the public during this phase; however, during the demolition phase, patients and visitors will notice increased noise. The expectation has been set that construction concludes each day by no later than 6:00 pm so we remain respectful of our patient’s ability to rest and recover throughout the evenings and night time. We want the public to know we are devoting all resources possible to ensuring this project is executed effectively and timely. We cannot wait to celebrate the completion of this impactful project with our community later next year.”

Having eight additional beds makes an impact on several factors for patients at Fairview. Having the increased capacity means a shorter wait time in the ER as patients in need of an ICU bed wait for one to become available, while also meaning less transfers out to different hospitals due to lack of capacity or the inability to receive transfers from other facilities needing to send a patient to Dublin. Having the ability to keep more patients closer to home also directly correlates with positive outcomes. Although traveling to receive healthcare is sometimes unpreventable, it does present a burden not only on the patient but the family members traveling to accompany and care for the patient.

“It’s obvious beds in this ICU are in high demand”, commented Tami Thomsen, RN, BSN, CCRN, Director, ICU. “We look at several factors when it comes to quality of care at Fairview. We look at number of ER visits, length of stay, patient experience, and other metrics that help us identify how we are moving the needle when it comes to each patient’s individualized health journey. Because of that, we know having timely access to a bed for our critical patients is paramount in their journey. This will allow us to reach more patients and provide quality care to more people in need.”