With construction ramping up at AdventHealth Dade City, patients and staffers will soon have access to some of the new amenities and upgrades as part of $22 million in capital improvements headed to the health care facility.
An update on the various upgrades was shared in a presentation by Dr. Rodrigo Torres, chief medical officer for AdventHealth Dade City, at The Greater Dade City Chamber of Commerce April breakfast meeting.
The latest addition to the health care facility is a 45-bed transitional care unit, which launches on May 1.
It’s one of the many enhanced facilities the hospital will see throughout 2019.
Torres described the unit as “a rehab center, but with higher capability.”
Patients discharged from in-patient stay will be able to be at the rehab center, but still have access to hospital services, surgeons, orthopedics and other medical staff. They’ll go to the rehab center because of medical necessity, to finish medications, to work on strength and balancing, and so on.
The unit projects to have a patient volume of 300 this year, and a patient volume of 1,000 in subsequent years.
“This is going to be something great that we look forward to,” Torres said.
Across from the transitional care unit is another wing that will house post-operative patients along with patients requiring a higher level of care, Torres said.
The interior of the wing is currently being retrofitted with a fresh paint job, new flooring, new bathrooms and more.
“Everything is brand new, literally from the floor all the way up,” Torres said. “The bathrooms look better than the ones at my house.”
Other aesthetic upgrades throughout the 100,000-square-foot facility include a new lobby and overhauled cafeteria, and even a chapel.
It’s all about providing patients at the 120-bed facility the best care possible, Torres said.
“We are tearing down the walls,” Torres said, “to make sure this facility can be the best that it can be.”
Several medical equipment upgrades also are on tap at the hospital, at 13100 Fort King Road in Dade City.
That includes an outpatient X-ray machine and an on-site MRI machine that Torres called “the latest and the greatest.”
Additionally, the hospital has since implemented a robotic surgery program with the da Vinci Si Surgical System.
Torres explained the robotic system — controlled by a surgeon from a console — is used by general surgeons, urologists and gynecologists for complex minimally invasive procedures, including hernia repairs and gall bladder removals.
He noted the da Vinci machine becomes useful for surgeries that may take several hours, where physician fatigue can sometimes come into play.
Other new features have come to the health care facility of late, too.
That includes an electronic medical records system, Cerner, which has eliminated the need for paper charts.
Torres noted the paperless technology offers “clarity and transparency when providing medical care.”
“It’s a better way of keeping medical records, especially in the age of identity theft,” he said.
The hospital also has installed an around-the-clock, telemonitoring system to its intensive care unit.
The system, Advanced ICU Care, allows patients and nurses to communicate virtually with on-call physicians in cases where an intensivist is not immediately available in person at the hospital.
Torres said the technology was originally brought to AdventHealth Zephyrhills about a year ago “with great results.”
Another new service to the hospital is online scheduling capabilities for emergency room visits — allowing patients to reserve a treatment time and avoid long waits in the waiting room.
The service, accessed through GetInQuicker.com, is recommended for patients with non-life or limb-threatening emergencies.
Since its launch in February, Torres said the check-in program “is one of the best things that has happened” to the health care facility.
“We have 100 percent recommendation rate for all the patients that have used this service,” he said.
Aside from facility and technological upgrades, the hospital has added five new physicians to its staff: Dr. Olga Villa (obstetrician-gynecologist), Dr. Jennifer Roller (gynecologist), Dr. Forrest Rubenstein (thoracic vascular surgeon), Dr. Armen Duekmedjian (neurosurgeon) and Dr. Amir Ahmadian (neurosurgeon).
Torres said doctors Ahmadian and Duekmedjian will be operating out of AdventHealth Zephyrhills, but will provide consultations and services to patients at AdventHealth Dade City, as well.
With the addition of gynecological physicians and services, Torres noted the hospital may consider adding labor and birth delivery services at some point: “In the near future, that’s one of the avenues that we’re looking at.”
Torres also mentioned that AdventHealth Dade City recently received its accredited recertification from the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, designating the hospital “a center of excellence for bariatric surgery.”
Published May 01, 2019
