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Edgerton Hospital gears up for move to new facility

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Photo by Bill Olmsted

Jackie Richardson, accounting and payroll clerk at Edgerton Hospital and Health Services, tries to keep working in a jumbled workspace Monday. The administrative departments of the hospital are the first on the schedule to move to the new east-side building. The new facility on Sherman Road is set to open Saturday, Oct. 1.

Photo

Photo by Bill Olmsted

The lobby of the hospital was a mass of moving carts waiting to be filled and transported to the new building.

Photo

Photo by Bill Olmsted

Employees of a Milwaukee moving company wheel furniture from Edgerton Hospital and Health Services to a moving van Monday.

EDGERTON — Moving a hospital is sort of like moving a house or corporate offices—except that it involves expensive medical equipment.

And medicine.

And a blood bank.

Not to mention patients.

It's just a few weeks until Saturday, Oct. 1, the date Edgerton Hospital and Health Services has set to fully open its new, 18-bed hospital on Sherman Road. There's a lot to move and a short time to move it.

On the list of things to pack up and move from the current hospital at 313 Stoughton Road into the new hospital: 2,000 pieces of furniture and equipment, including sensitive radiology and imaging machines worth millions of dollars; patient records; and an entire pharmacy.

Then there are the people—as many as 18 inpatients who would need to be moved by ambulance from the old hospital to the new one.

And there's details, such as directional street signs that must be moved.

"Those little blue hospital signs aren't a small detail," said Peter Fauerbach, coordinator for the move.

Fauerbach runs HealthWorcs, a consulting firm that specializes in hospital and healthcare moves.

For the last year, he's helped Edgerton hospital staff plan the pending cross-town move.

Early phases of the move already are under way. But on Friday, Sept. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 1, Madison and Milwaukee-based professional movers Coakley Brothers will team up with hospital and medical staff and crews of specialty technicians to move the bulk of the old hospital—medical equipment and supplies—from the old hospital to the new one.

For a full shift, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 1, both the new and old hospitals, including their emergency rooms, will run simultaneously. The idea is to smooth the transition as the old hospital winds down operations and the new hospital is brought into full service.

Inpatients who come into the old hospital Friday and aren't released by Saturday will be individually transported to the new hospital by ambulance.

Meanwhile, everything will be moving. Items at the old hospital will go onto three-tiered carts big enough to move an entire office. Movers will cover the carts with packing plastic and load them into large moving trucks—six in all.

At the new hospital, crews will trundle items up an outpatient care elevator and hand them off to other crews lined up in the hallways.

"It's frenetic in one sense, but in another way, it's like an assembly line," Fauerbach said.

Administrators and employees who don't provide patient care moved their offices into the new hospital this week, amid technicians bringing in new equipment and installing and calibrating it.

Meanwhile, staff at the new hospital are gearing up for patient care, touring the facility and running practice scenarios with mock patients in the new emergency room and other departments at the hospital.

The biggest issue in the move, said Edgerton Hospital Facilities Director Tom Freeman, is the stress staff is under as employees feel their way around a new, 53,000-square-foot facility with brand new equipment and an unfamiliar layout.

The biggest catastrophe in the last few days: A large item got dropped and broken during the move. It was a file cabinet—an old file cabinet.

No big deal, said Freeman.

"I've been saying it's like making an omelet. You are going to break some eggs," Freeman said.

MOVING EDGERTON HOSPITAL

The new Edgerton Hospital and Health Services on Sherman Road will open to patients Saturday, Oct. 1. But before that happens, staff and professional consultants are involved in a multiphase move from the hospital at 313 Stoughton Road. Some phases of the move already are underway, but the major move comes Friday, Sept. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 1, when technicians will move medical equipment, patient files and inpatients from the current hospital to the new site. It's a complex process.

Here's how it works:

Four to six weeks prior to opening new hospital: Patients continue to receive care at the Stoughton Road facility. Edgerton Hospital takes ownership of new hospital on Sherman Road, meaning the new facility has completed all state-mandated evaluations. During this time, technicians install, test and calibrate equipment.

Four weeks to two weeks prior to opening new hospital: Patients continue to receive care at Stoughton road facility. Administrative and non-patient care services are moved to the new hospital on Sherman Road. During this time, hospital staff and technicians begin training to get familiarized with equipment and surroundings at the new hospital. Staff conducts simulated, dry run practices handling patients in areas of the new hospital, including the emergency room and X-ray and surgical areas. This work is done in advance to avoid overcrowding and congestion during the main move of medical equipment and inpatients Saturday, Oct. 1.

New hospital opens/patient and medical equipment moved: On Friday, Sept. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 1, patients receive care at both the Stoughton Road facility and at the new hospital while the hospital conducts its major move. During one shift from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 1, inpatients at the Stoughton Road facility will be transported by ambulance to the new hospital. Special technicians and professional movers move the hospital blood bank, perishable items and supplies, along with thousands of pieces furniture, equipment and patient records to the new hospital. Meanwhile, rented equipment such as a mobile CT scan machine and emergency room chemistry analyzers is brought in to ensure both hospitals have critical services during the transition. By mid-afternoon Oct. 1, the new Edgerton Hospital and Health Services is operational and the Stoughton Road facility is closed to patients.

Source: Edgerton Hospital and Health Services, HealthWorcs Consulting