Today, a visit to the emergency room means a trip to downtown Colorado Springs, but officials at Memorial and Penrose-St. Francis hospitals said those days will soon be over.Expanding the existing hospitals in old established neighborhoods was a logistical nightmare, said Tanya Dantzler, public relations spokeswoman for Penrose-St. Francis Health Services. She said the hospital is constantly receiving complaints from city residents about the noise caused by the Flight for Life helicopter. Plus, both area hospitals are surrounded by residential neighborhoods, making building expansions nearly impossible without purchasing homes.And, as the population increases north and east of the city, the need for additional medical facilities has become apparent.Bradd Hafer, spokesman for Memorial Hospital, said a medical campus is almost completed on an 82-acre site northeast of Briargate Parkway and Union Boulevard. A full-service hospital, clinics and medical office buildings will allow Memorial Hospital to serve the fastest growing section of the city, expanding with the increasing population.Hafer said the first phase of Memorial Hospital North includes a five-story, 89-bed hospital. “It will be a full-service stand-alone hospital with an emergency department, surgical, maternity and acute care inpatient units,” he said. The latest diagnostic equipment, including MRI, CT and radiology services is part of the comprehensive medical care for both inpatients and outpatients.Architecturally, the buildings are designed in an oval shape to serve two functions. First, there are no long corridors, Hafer said, so all patient rooms are within steps of a nursing station. Second, the design allows the medical offices to be integrated into the campus with easy access to the hospital, and the hospital itself can be expanded to 500 beds should the need arise.”The view of Pikes Peak from the hospital’s two-story atrium lobby is incredible,” Hafer said, adding that a garden will provide a peaceful environment for patients and visitors. Memorial North is scheduled to open during the first quarter of 2007.Penrose-St. Francis Medical Center also will begin construction later this summer on a new medical facility near the southeast corner of Woodmen Road and Powers Boulevard.In a news release, Penrose-St. Francis CEO Rick O’Connell said, “The new $225 million St. Francis Medical Center Campus is the rebirth of the hospital.” It includes a 320,000-square-foot medical tower with 158 hospital beds, an emergency room, surgical, diagnostic, cardiac and critical care units, plus full-service medical imaging units.All maternity services will be transferred from Penrose Community Hospital when the new medical center opens with a Level III neonatal intensive care unit, and a women’s care unit. “Critically ill babies are no longer going to have to be flown to a hospital in Denver for treatment; we will have all the state-of-the-art medical equipment necessary right here in Colorado Springs,” Dantzler said.The 45-acre site also provides room for an 80,000-square-foot freestanding physicians’ office building and a 100,000-square-foot ambulatory service building. There will be a hangar and on-site repair service for the Flight for Life program, and the hospital can be expanded to a 300-bed facility in the future, Dantzler said.St. Francis Medical Center Campus is expected to open in July.
