MHP has passed the half way point in construction of a new addition. Work on the project has been going on for a little more than a year now. CRI's Aaron Riggs gives us a look inside as some of the rooms start to take shape.

"Project's going well," says Jay Christensen.

Progress is being made with less than a year remaining in the construction of the new patient care wing at Mahaska Health Partnership. Progress that's creating some excitement..

"It's just an exciting time for us to be a facility where we're able to provide the quality of facility that matches the quality of staff that we have providing such a outstanding service. And we just think it's something that patients in Mahaska County deserve and we're excited to be able to provide it," says Christensen.

Once completed, the patient care wing will be the new home for surgical, birthing, and in-patient services and will boast several improvements over the more than forty-five year old space the services currently call home.

Among the list of updates and improvements are three surgery rooms, two endoscopy rooms, five intensive care rooms, five birthing rooms with two more rooms available for overflow, as well as twenty-five traditional inpatient hospital rooms.

Improvements in the surgical rooms include high ceilings and steel supports that hold booms for modern surgical equipment.

"These are the new booms that we're installing. On these will be the surgical lights and the medical gas connections," says Director of Facilities Lyle McLane.

Elevators in the surgical area allow patient privacy before and after surgical procedures.

"This is the new elevator going in so we can transport patients back up to inpatient"

Upstairs are the birthing and inpatient rooms. The five dedicated birthing rooms are larger than the current ones each with a bathroom and a whirlpool tub.

"And in here will be a toilet a whirlpool tub and a shower and a sink. And it's all designed to be wheel chair accessible," says McLane.

And when the babies are born, parents will get to show off their newborns in the nursery.

"You can see that there's a window over here on this side so that visitors walking down the hall can look at the babies," says McLane.

The new inpatient rooms also have improvements.

"These are all private rooms and they have their own restrooms. They're a lot larger than the current rooms that we have," says McLane.

And in the hallway outside the hospital rooms "there's a nook for each one of the patient rooms" for nurses to do charting or gather supplies.

Down the hall from the inpatient rooms are the intensive care units. One of these is called an anti-room, which means air only flows into the room and then out through special air filter vents.

"So if we get a patient with like tuberculosis we can put them in this room," says McLane.

Christensen expects the staff to be able to move into the new wing this September and to begin operating shortly after.

"We want to make sure we allow time so that when we open everything's in place and running smooth first," says Christensen.

As for the old building, Christensen expects to give that space a new purpose.

"We'll have a lot of available space in the new facility, some of which will be directed toward new services that we're going to be determining over the next 12 months," says Christensen.

Making healthcare in Mahaska County, like in the country generally, an ever-evolving industry. For CRI Weekly News, I'm Aaron Riggs.

The intensive care anti-room will be the first of its kind at MHP.