Susquehanna Health launched a major initiative in 2006 to redevelop its current campus locations with new and updated facilities that will give our patients the excellent care they have come to expect from Susquehanna Health. The objective of the entire redevelopment project is consistent with our mission, vision and values and affords contemporary "best practice" medical care in a safe, efficient, flexible and aesthetically pleasing environment that is conducive to health and healing.

Muncy Valley Hospital Welcomes Visitors To See Private Rooms

Attendees to the Muncy Valley Open House last Sunday, April 25 were impressed and pleased to see this rural hospital's modern and updated features. The Hospital recently renovated its entire inpatient area transitioning from 25 semi private rooms to 16 private rooms and 2 semi private rooms. These new rooms have been completely renovated with new furniture and décor.

Most attendees commented on how the new rooms appear less clinical with the use of calming and soothing colors along with the modern furniture. Artwork from area artists are sprinkled through the hallways and add to the homelike atmosphere at the hospital.

Beyond the aesthetic appeal to the new rooms, each room is equipped with modern technology; computers are placed at the patient's bedside and allow for caregivers to update patients' files electronically. The use of these bedside computers eliminates paper charts, increases efficiency and enhances personal communication with the patient.

Room mock ups share glimpse of hospital’s future.

The future Williamsport Hospital & Medical Center will include cutting-edge technology and amenities like flat-screen, wall-mounted televisions and a power backup system to restore and maintain electrical power in almost any emergency.

There will be same number of patient beds (226) in 2012 when the new patient tower opens, but the beds will be more comfortable and in single-patient private rooms designed with pull-out couches so relatives can stay over when circumstances warrant.

The atmosphere being created with Susquehana Health's Project 2012 expansion and technological upgrade project is designed to provide a "healing environment for the patient," according to Rita Spangler, the health system's vice president of facility development.

In a lower-level section of the current hospital, there is a temporary display containing mockups of what the new facility's operating theater and regular patient and emergency department rooms will look like, cira 2012.

As of 2012, multiple-patient rooms will be history; and - based on the feedback health system officials have been getting from staff and community groups given tours of the displays - the new patient rooms will have almost "a hotel feel instead of a traditional hospital feel," Spangler added.

There will be more privacy and a lot less noise as delivery of food and most maintenance services go out of sight into special delivery corridors hidden from the view of patients and visitors.

There will be no charts hanging at the foot of each patient's bed because information will be computerized and accessible from almost everywhere in the facility.

Nurses will be close at hand, working out of one of three nurses stations on each floor and utilizing smaller nurses stations, also with computers, located between each room.

"If (they) need to check something," said Spangler. "(They) can go right to the computer."

The current emergency department's 29 curtained cubicles will also be replaced by 52 single-patient rooms.

The hospital will operate with little paper and utilize highly efficient reciprocating natural gas engines to increase energy efficiency and on-site co-generation systems to capture energy that would otherwise be lost to power heating and hot water systems.

"We won't be reliant on the grids," summed up Spangler during a visit to the display for the Sum-Gazette Thursday.

In addition to select public visits to the display, hospital employees have been asked to look over the planned rooms and evaluate them: and according to Spangler and Tracie Witter, administrative director of market development and corporate communications, the staff's input has and will continue to result in refinements.