Riverview Health Westfield Hospital has already undergone changes to its development plan prior to being completed, causing the hospital to delay its opening. On Aug. 31, it will host a public open house from 3 to 7 p.m. and open for patients the following month.
Current in Westfield conducted a Q&A interview Riverview Health CEO Seth Warren and Executive Director of Riverview Health Westfield Hospital Tammi Nash about the upcoming grand opening and what the hospital will offer Westfield.
Q: Why was there a need for a Westfield hospital?
Seth Warren: We are seeing explosive growth over there, and with (U.S.) 31 being a major thoroughfare, we are going to continue to see growth north, and addressing the northern parts there was important to us. And with growth of what’s happening in Westfield in terms of Grand Park, we have thousands of people there on any given weekend. I think we recognized there are a lot of health care needs happening in Westfield for people who didn’t necessarily know the market place.
Q: What are you most excited for with the opening of Riverview Health Westfield Hospital?
Tammi Nash: I think one unique feature we are doing is having the area’s first combined emergent with urgent care. That allows consumers to take the guess out of, “I have this illness or this injury, do I need to drive here and go to emergency or do I need to drive here for urgent?” We will have that available.
I think the other thing that’s exciting with the first floor was really looking at all the various inputs to health care. We have that emergent/urgent, but we also have our occupational, so we are meeting the needs of our employers that need occupational health services. The employer clinic, the City of Westfield, Westfield Washington Schools and also Hamilton County, those employees can also seek their health care right there on the first floor. That is also combined, so their pharmacy is right there for them, too.
Seth Warren: I’m most excited about having a hospital there. I’m a resident of Westfield, and I’m very proud to have Riverview have our hospital in that community.
Q: Why was the opening delayed?
Seth Warren: We’ve expanded the scope of it significantly from the original design. First, it started construction as an outpatient care center, but as we looked at the population growth and what was going on in the market, we decided to add the emergency room and expand with the operation rooms. We were going to open with one, and we have three now. We expanded the diagnostic imaging capability. We weren’t going to have CT scan. We now have a CT scanner. Also, we now have inpatient beds. During construction, we had to stop, redo the drawings, redo the design and then continue construction. While it was delayed, we now have a lot more products and offerings than originally proposed.
Floor by floor
Riverview Health Westfield Hospital will first open the first two floors of the building, with the upper four floors following three to four months later.
First floor: This floor will offer the emergency/urgent care, laboratory services, the employer clinic, the pharmacy, an imaging center and a WorkMed clinic.
Second floor: This floor will house four inpatient beds and surgery services. There are three surgery suites with recovery rooms and pre- and post-operative rooms.
Third floor: This floor will house 16 in-patient beds.
Fourth floor: This floor will have an office for Riverview Health Physicians Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, and it also will include sports medicine physicians Dr. Roy Henderson and Dr. Joseph Hui. Also housed on this floor will be orthopedic surgeons Dr. Christ Kellams and Dr. Michael Kaveney. The office will include a walk-in orthopedic clinic. This floor also includes outpatient rehabilitation services such as physical and occupational therapy.
Fifth floor: This floor will house Riverview Health Physicians primary care providers Dr. Valeria Beard, Dr. Jeffrey Klak and internal medicine provider Dr. Sonal Ravichandran. Endocrinology and general surgery specialties also will be housed here.
Sixth floor: This floor provides room for growth for other physicians.
