NORFOLK, Va. (WVEC) -- Employees and the media got a sneak peek into Sentara Norfolk General Hospital’s Kaufman and River Pavilion expansion project on Tuesday.
The $199 million project will add three floors to two existing wings, expand the emergency department, consolidate the hospital’s 54 ICU beds on two floors, and welcome a new rooftop helipad.
The facility will include, two new floors on top of Kaufman. The floors will include medicine units relocated from within the tower to allow other units to expand their services. To enhance and streamline the hospital’s care for acute patients, three floors on top of River Pavilion will consolidate all ICU beds, including burn trauma, vascular, neuro, and others.
Project Manager Andrea West said the expansion makes the hospital more energy efficient, patient rooms more comfortable and prepared for the future.
“Caring for our health system elders, we picked paints that are neutral that you would find in any home, used woodgrains and sconces. We used nice decorative tile in the bathroom, so it feels like any bathroom you would see in a home. We wanted to make sure we had the ability to capture what we need for today, but also plan for the future,” said West.
In conjunction with the vertical expansion, the entire campus will renumber every patient room, including in the heart hospital. More than 190 patients are expected to move into the new spaces from July 17 to 20, 2018.
Sentara Norfolk General is home base for the Nightingale Regional Air Ambulance and the helipad accommodates up to 1,200 landings per year. West said medical and military helicopters will fly into the hospital’s rooftop helipads.
“So we have two differently sized helipads. One is sized that a Blackhawk helicopter can land and one is sized for our specific Nightingale helicopter,” said West.
The new rooftop helipads on the Kaufman wing will have a dedicated elevator to the trauma center in the emergency room.
Sentara Norfolk General is Hampton Roads’ only Level I Trauma Center and the primary teaching hospital for Eastern Virginia Medical School. The hospital’s expansion of the Kaufman and River Pavilion patient towers is expected to be completed by the end of June.
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