Starting Monday, February 15, Sioux Center Health’s main entrance will be closed while work is being completed on the new registration and waiting areas for the hospital, Family Medicine Clinic and Specialty Clinic, and offices.
The emergency entrance on the north side will be the only public entrance into the building. The north parking lot A and B will also become the patient and visitor parking area, while the main entrance on the east side is closed for an estimated four months.
Once patients enter the emergency entrance, a greeter will be there to take temperature and direct patients. Clinic patients will continue to register in the Family Medicine Clinic, with the Patient Flow Coordinator (PFC). Urgent Care patients will also continue to be seen in the Family Medicine Clinic in hallway A.
Sioux Center Health CEO Cory Nelson said the goal is to reopen the main entrance by June.
“We know it’s going to be a tremendous inconvenience for everybody,” Nelson said, “but we really believe when the whole project is completed, the efficiency and the ease of navigating inside the facility will be greatly improved and everyone will have a much better experience when they come inside this facility.”
Part of the entity’s $36 million project on which it broke ground Oct. 22 is to remodel and redesign how patients get into the medical clinic as well as provide private admission areas for the hospital and medical clinic patients, a separate registration area for the specialty clinic and private waiting rooms for the medical and specialty clinics.
Plans also include doubling the size of its medical clinic by adding 16 medical exam rooms to the family medical clinic to be able to integrate the urgent care clinic within the medical clinic and expand behavioral health services.
So far, footings are in the ground for the clinic expansion. The next steps are to work inside and outside.
Nelson said on the inside a temporary wall will go up where the current registration desk is and remodel work will create additional office space and a new registration experience for patients when they come into the facility.
“One of the biggest confusions we have is people walking in aren’t sure where to go, where to register,” he said. “We’re trying to clean that up, especially for the medical clinic.”
“COVID has taught us a lot, too. We want to reduce the distance and traffic people have to traverse inside the facility. The flow after the remodel allows people to go into the medical clinic at the front of the building instead of walking in what will the back part of the clinic. This will really shorten the walk for people and reduce the potential areas of transmission in everything from COVID to flu to just colds in general.”
The target date for opening the newly expanded clinic is late August or early September.
“We are having a little bit of a challenge getting some of the steel right now for construction so it could get pushed back, but we’re planning to try find some ways to bring it back onto our timeline if that does happen,” Nelson said. “Our first goal is to be able to reopen the main entrance first when it comes to that portion of the project.
“We ask for everybody’s prayers and grace during this time because it is a challenging process. There will certainly be more hiccups throughout the time frame, but we appreciate everybody’s patience.”
Senior Living Campus
The other part of the entity’s $36 million project involved expanding Sioux Center Health’s Senior Living campus — the name for the property on which Royale Meadows and Crown Pointe sit.
All the footings are in for the nursing home expansion that involves adding 32 skilled nursing rooms on the north side of Royale Meadows. Nelson said walls should begin going up soon. The targeted completion of this project is end of July or early August.
Looking even further ahead, mid-October is the targeted completion of the Main Street area between the existing Crown Pointe and Royale Meadows facilities that will include a welcome center, community center, a café, salon and spa, social club, media center and news stand, chapel, bank/ATM, outdoor courtyard with gazebo and walking paths, dining room and a large area to gather for family and friends.
“This is going to be a really exciting time for us,” Nelson said. “It’s really going to help create that connection point and sense of community inside the senior campus.”
April 2022 is the tentative completion time for the additional 24 assisted living apartments on the south side of its Senior Living Campus that are to include multiple dining selections, private family gathering area, covered outdoor patios and central entrance into the campus’s Main Street.
The completion of Sioux Center Health’s first memory care facility is set for June 2022. Plans involve building a 16-room facility that will be located on the northwest section of the Senior Living Campus.
“We’re so fortunate to have the weather that we had,” Nelson said. “From November up until this last week we were pouring concrete. We usually don’t have that ability in Iowa. Having as much done as we do is allowing us to have some flexibility in our scheduling. Despite the challenges on the supply side with some of the construction materials, we feel good about where we’re at.”