Hamilton residents don’t have to leave the city to get higher quality care, said officials of Fort Hamilton Hospital Wednesday.

With a $5 million expansion and renovation underway on the hospital’s emergency department, physician recruitment and new services, the same care available in Cincinnati or other county hospitals is available in Hamilton, said Jennifer Swenson, president of Fort Hamilton.

She spoke Wednesday afternoon at a groundbreaking ceremony for the emergency department project, which is expected to be finished by the end of next year.

This is the first major renovation of the emergency department in possibly 10 years, she said.

“This means you no longer need to leave Hamilton to receive high quality health care. It’s right here in your backyard,” she said.

This creates “more access points for the patient in the community,” she told the Hamilton JournalNews.

Bob Weigel of Hamilton, former board chair of the hospital before it joined Kettering Health Network, and now a Kettering Health board member, said every community wants a strong hospital.

The emergency department is the hospital’s biggest source of patients.

“It’s important that we have these facilities because that creates a strong hospital. We can’t have only one good part of the hospital,” Weigel said.

Fort Hamilton has become the city’s third largest employer of more than 1,000 people behind county government and the school district, making it the largest private employer. Swenson said this construction project marks the hospital’s commitment to meet the needs of the community.

The project also marks a major milestone in the hospital’s relationship with its new parent organization, said Fred Manchur, president and chief executive of Dayton area-based Kettering Health. Fort Hamilton joined Kettering Health July of 2010 after separating from the former health system Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati.

Fort Hamilton is Kettering Health’s second busiest emergency room behind Kettering Medical Center, Manchur said.

“This is one area where we believe needs improvement,” he said. “A good large majority of our patients here come in that front door.”

The Fort Hamilton emergency department saw about 36,000 patient visits last year. This year looks to exceed that amount with more than 40,000 patient visits, said Dr. Marcus Romanello, director of the department. He began his position Jan. 1. Once the expansion of 5,000 additional square feet is complete, it will have the capacity to handle more than 52,000 patient visits a year.

But the more efficient emergency room physicians and nurses become to handle growing patient volumes, the more patients the hospital can see, Romanello said. The renovated emergency department will help improve efficiencies by adding seven “fast track” patient rooms, private rooms for behavioral health patients and a stat lab for blood and other sample tests, he said.

Half of the funds for the emergency department was raised with donations, with the other half coming from Kettering Health, Swenson said.