Emergency Department has also been renovated, expanded

The new Critical Care Unit at St. Francis Hospital opened on Thursday, Sept. 4, marking a milestone expansion of the community hospital in Federal Way.

This state-of-the-art addition, which has 30 beds, houses the intensive care and progressive care units where the most seriously ill and injured patients will be treated by a team of expert physicians, nurses and other health care professionals.

The Critical Care Unit has been constructed on top of the busy Emergency Department. As part of this $32 million project, the Emergency Department was also renovated and expanded, creating additional treatment space and a larger, more comfortable public lobby.

“Our hospital is growing so that we can better serve the community,” says Sister Anne McNamara, interim chief operating officer at St. Francis.  

Critical Care Unit

The Critical Care Unit, which features all-private patient rooms, is the largest addition to the hospital since the St. Francis Outpatient Center opened in 2003. The new facility houses skilled staff and advanced technology dedicated to treating critical care patients who, until now, have received care on the hospital’s general medical and surgical floors.

The addition of the Critical Care Unit means fewer patients will have to be transferred to other hospitals for care. In previous years, for example, more than 600 patients annually have been sent to St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and other hospitals because St. Francis Hospital lacked available beds.

While the beds in the Critical Care Unit are not additional beds, the all-private rooms allow for more efficient use of all the hospital’s 110 licensed beds. The new Critical Care Unit also will permit semi-private rooms on the hospital’s medical and surgical floors that have previously had two patient beds each to now become single-patient, fully private suites.

The Critical Care Unit includes 14 intensive care rooms for critically ill patients who need intensive monitoring by specially trained caregivers, and 16 progressive care rooms for patients who do not need intensive care but do require more nursing care than is usually provided on the general medical and surgical floors.

Each of the patient rooms is private and spacious, and features innovative design that provides caregivers immediate access to the equipment and supplies needed for the care of the critically ill. The patient rooms also feature:

·        Full, private bathrooms that enhance patient privacy and provide ultimate flexibility for patient and staff

·        Lifts for safe patient handling

·        Large windows, allowing in natural light and providing grand views of Mount Rainier, surrounding trees and the Healing Garden

·        Plenty of comfortable space for visitors, including large fold-out window seats that enable family members to stay the night with their loved ones

·        Large, movable booms mounted to the ceilings in intensive care rooms and which hold all the necessary high-tech monitoring and patient-care equipment

·        Centralized monitoring system allowing for 24/7 monitoring of all rooms

·        Observation alcoves each equipped with a computer and phone from which nurses visually monitor patients from outside the patient rooms

·        A “nurse server” feature that permits all necessary supplies to be stocked from outside the patient rooms, decreasing staff exposure to infection and increasing privacy for the patients. 

Expanded Emergency Department

The Emergency Department at St. Francis Hospital has been expanded and remodeled to better handle the growing number of patients. Designed to handle 25,000 patients per year when the hospital opened 21 years ago, the Emergency Department now accommodates nearly 48,000 patient visits annually.

Changes include the addition of four exam rooms and an expanded waiting area to better serve patients. The check-in and triage areas have also been remodeled, creating better patient flow and privacy. A new elevator allows faster transfer of patients to the second-floor operating rooms and the new Critical Care Unit on the third floor.

The Critical Care Unit was designed by Mahlum Architects; Skanska served as the general contractor. The cost of the project is being paid by St. Francis Hospital, Franciscan Health System and Catholic Health Initiatives, the national organization with which Franciscan and St. Francis are affiliated.

St. Francis Hospital has served residents of Federal Way and South King County since 1987.