FRANKLIN - Franklin County residents on Aug. 30 will celebrate the dedication of the Franklin County Memorial Hospital $4.1 million expansion and renovation project.
Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, Grand Master Russ Reno of the Grand Lodge of Nebraska Masons as well as county and city officials will be honored guest at the dedication ceremony.
The ceremony is set for 1:30 pm in Franklin at the hospital.
"We have the professional staff of physicians and nurses that competes with any larger hospital" said Jerrell Gerdes, administrator for Franklin County Memorial Hospital.
"With the expansion of our facility and hospital campus, we now offer our patients top-of-the line outpatient services," Gerdes said. Franklin County Memorial Hospital originally opened on June 6, 1952. In 1972, the medical clinic was added to the hospital as well as additional inpatient beds in 1975. The clinic was connected to the hospital in 1993.
"The implementation of the outpatient expansion has been a five-year work effort on the part of the hospital staff, hospital trustees and community," Gerdes said.
"A strategic plan was adopted at the hospital that has been followed and now achieved. This expansion should meet our patients' demands and needs for many years to come," he said.
Among the construction improvements are the new outpatient service of aqua therapy. The hospital has installed a SwimEx Therapy Pool that offers resistance exercise and therapy. The area also has new dressing rooms and shower rooms. The cardiac rehabilitation has been expanded to provide a warm up area, cardiac-stress testing room and improved monitoring of the patients. Radiology services have added a 4-slice CT scanner which has fixed housing in the new building, eliminating the present service that had been provided in a trailer in the hospital parking lot.
Construction on the hospital, which includes the 14,000 square foot expansion of outpatient center, began in March 2008. It was the first major renovation of the hospital since the 1975 expansion.
@ In addition to the aqua therapy, cardiac rehabilitation and physical therapy expansion, a new hospital laboratory has been constructed.@ Prior to the project, FCMH staff had to provide professional services in the basement of the hospital utilizing about@400-square feet while the addition is 1,200-square foot with a permanent phlebotomy room addition.@ The laboratory has utilized the emergency room for phlebotomy in years past.@
"It will just be so much more convenient and efficient for our patients and medical staff," Gerdes said.
Other outpatient services included in the project are specialty clinic examination rooms, the relocation of the present physical therapy, massage therapy and occupation therapy from the its present location downtown to the hospital campus and a family counseling room that also can be used for health education such as "I Can Cope" for cancer patients and their families.
Gerdes said improvements to the hospital's parking lot have been made to make entry to the facility much more convenient for patients. An elevator and other handicapped accessible additions were constructed to make the facility more accessible.
Franklin County Memorial Hospital operates Certified Rural Health Clinics in Campbell, Hildreth as well as Franklin. The hospital manages a Rural Health Clinic in Red Cloud and staffs a clinic in Blue Hill.
