Kootenai Health has started interior renovations valued at $4.3 million this month for three departments in its main hospital building, at 2003 Kootenai Health Way in Coeur d’Alene. 

The upgrades involve improvements to existing and recently expanded space for the pharmacy, central supply storage, and sterile processing departments.

The project includes a total of 17,000 square feet, 12,000 of which is renovations and 5,000 of which is recently constructed new space, says Derek Miller, director of facilities planning and property management with the hospital.

Including the newly constructed space, the total value of the project is $6.5 million, he says. It’s expected to be completed by next summer.

That overall project started in July, he says.

The new space is built on two former courtyards, one of which the pharmacy will occupy. The other former courtyard is occupied by new warehouse space in which the central supply department will store supplies used in surgery, he says.

The sterile processing department will move into the current pharmacy space, he says.

The hospital is expanding the pharmacy because it recently added more beds, Miller says.

In the 2013 Book of Lists, the Journal reported the hospital housed 246 beds. That number has steadily increased since then. Since March 2016, Kootenai Health has had 299 beds, he says.

 “For every bed you have, you’re supposed to have so many square feet of pharmacy space,” says Miller. “Recently, we just increased the number of beds we have pretty dramatically, and that’s really driving that pharmacy growth.”

The same principle applies to the central supply department and the sterile processing department, where medical devices are sanitized and prepared for future use, he says.

“You can’t have a fully functional surgery department unless you can process more instruments … or materials coming in,” he says.

Bouten Construction Co. and NAC Architecture, both of Spokane, are handling the project.

The work is part of the $45 million second phase in Kootenai Health’s master plan to upgrade the hospital.

Funding for the master plan projects comes from Kootenai Health’s existing capital budget, as well as money raised by the Kootenai Health Foundation, says Miller.

As part of the current phase of the hospital’s master plan, Kootenai Health started expanding the surgery department and emergency department at the main hospital over a year ago, says Miller.

As previously reported in the Journal, the $24 million surgery department expansion site is on the north end of the main hospital’s second floor, in space once occupied by the labor-and-delivery unit, which moved into the 100,000-square-foot, first-phase expansion in 2016.

The $15 million emergency department expansion is on the south side of Kootenai Health’s main floor. 

Both of the surgery and emergency departments projects also are expected to be completed in summer 2018.