Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital Unveils $150M-Plus Expansion, Set to Open in May
Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital’s new three-story tower should open May 3 and may come in under its $158 million budget, hospital officials said Tuesday during a walk-through of the new facility.
The new facility marks the completion of the first of a two-phase expansion project, which broke ground in September 2019. The second phase, a renovation of the emergency department, is expected to be completed by year’s end, said Dan Peterson, CEO of Sutter Santa Rosa.
The hospital’s expansion project was initially estimated to cost $158 million, to include a $15 million capital campaign, Lisa Amador, assistant administrator and director of philanthropy, told the Business Journal in July 2019.
“We do expect to come in under budget, (but) not a lot under budget,” Peterson said Tuesday. “Until all is said and done, we won’t really know exactly where we came in.”
The $15 million philanthropic component is ongoing, he noted.
The new three-story wing, situated on the east side of the hospital, adds 67,000 square feet of space, which includes 40 more beds in all-private patient rooms, two operating rooms, one endoscopy and gastroenterology room, 20 intensive care unit beds and 11 post-anesthesia care unit bays, as the Business Journal previously reported.
The forthcoming 10,713-square-foot renovation to the existing emergency department will add nine emergency department bays, expanded dietary services, a laboratory and blood bank, and a central sterile processing unit to support additional services, also previously reported by the Business Journal.
During the 2019 groundbreaking ceremony for the new tower, then-CEO Michael Purvis said the hospital had reached capacity soon after it opened in 2014, prompting discussions about an expansion.
The new tower is fully equipped with state-of-the-art technology, down to the clocks at the nursing stations, which are all Wi-Fi-enabled and connected to the world clock, said Jeffery Miller, chief engineer for Sutter Santa Rosa. The idea is to ensure precision in timing across all parts of a patient’s care, such as what time a doctor visited a patient or when a nurse administered medication.
Nursing staff also provided input during the early design phases, and their feedback was incorporated into the final product, said Matthew Boersma, construction manager at HerreroBOLDT, and senior project manager for Sutter Santa Rosa’s expansion.
One of the recommendations met was the installation of a second call button in each patient room, to be located on the wall just inside the door so when a patient inadvertently pushes the button, the nurse can disable it at the doorway.
