The high-tech surgery suites are already in use, birthing beds are being installed in the motel-room-like birthing rooms, and final touches are under way in the new, 47-bed neonatal intensive care unit.


Sacred Heart Medical Centers $100 million west tower expansioneasily the largest single hospital construction project here in decadesis expected to open fully this month, three months early and a few million dollars under budget, says Michael Kelly, the hospitals facility director.


A public open house has been scheduled for Sept. 19, from 1 to 5 p.m.


The seven-story, 250,000-square-foot structure is located just west of Sacred Hearts main hospital building, along McClellan Street. It was built in such a way that three more stories could be built above it later, Kelly says.


The name on the building is the Womens Health Center, but it will house far more than outpatient womens services and maternity care, including the new surgery suites, a state-of-the art sterile processing and decontamination center, and the neonatal intensive care unit, which is part of the new Childrens Hospital.


A separate Childrens Hospital project in Sacred Hearts east tower was completed a year ago. Together, the two projects were estimated to cost about $131 million.


The new west towers main floor, which actually is one level above grade due to the slope of the South Hill there, can be accessed through a corridor off the main hospital buildings lobby.


It includes a large waiting area and check-in for the hospitals surgery suites, which are located a floor below on lower-level (LL) 1. The main floor also houses some outpatient womens programs, a cardiovascular health program, a meditation room, classrooms, and a gift shop.


On LL1, in addition to the new surgery suites, is the buildings main outside entry, which faces a driveway thats accessible from Eighth Avenue and which can be used to drop off patients or use the hospitals valet parking.


The surgery area opened last month and includes 20 new surgical suites, some of which are replacements for suites elsewhere in the hospital.


Others are yet to be remodeled or relocated in the overall project, but when theyre done, Sacred Heart will have a total of 28 surgery suites, up from 21 before the project began.


The west tower surgical suites all have the latest technology, including touch-screen monitors that surgeons can use to view X-rays and to control such things as surgical lighting and room temperature.


Below the surgery suites, on LL2, are the sterile processing and decontamination facility, as well as some surgery-support offices. LL3, the lowest level of the building, houses the structures heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment, and also is used for storage and security.


The Birth Place


The west towers second floor will house the hospitals maternity unit, called The Birth Place, which will be moving late this month from the ninth floor of the main building. The unit will include 15 labor-delivery rooms, 21 post-partum patient rooms, a 12-bed ante-partum unit for high-risk pregnancies, and two Cesarean-section surgery suites.


The new labor-delivery rooms are spacious and designed to hide, as much as possible, the medical devices and hook-ups necessary during delivery, to give them more of a home-like or motel-like feel, hospital officials says.


The rooms have a place for family members to rest and include refrigerators, TVs, VCRs, and stereos, and the bathrooms are equipped with jetted tubs.


The floor also houses a well-baby nursery.


Above The Birth Place, on the third floor, will be the hospitals neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), which will have 47 semi-private rooms, allowing families more privacy than the current, 16-bed ward offers in the hospitals main building.


The semi-private rooms include places for family members to sleep when necessary, and the department also includes a waiting area and a family resource center.


The NICU technically is part of the Childrens Hospital, and the third floor on which it is housed is connected through the main hospital to the expanded east tower.


The fourth floor of the new structure is currently just shelled in, and was built for future expansion.


The structure was built by Bouten Construction Co., of Spokane, and was designed by Seattle-based Mahlum Architects.


Other work at the hospital, however, is ongoing, including major remodeling in the current surgery suites, and continued expansion and remodeling in the emergency department.