Mercy Health launches $14M renovation, expansion project in Fairfield

Mercy Health-Fairfield Hospital is in the first stages of a $14.2 million renovation and expansion aimed at improving access and enhancing patient care in surgery and inpatient and outpatient endoscopy.

The project is the largest one the 38-year-old hospital has undertaken since “major expansion” efforts in 2002, 2003 and 2004, and will expand patients’ ability to utilize the hospital’s spine intervention capabilities and improve access to its ambulatory surgery center, according to Mercy Health North Market President and CEO Thomas Urban.

Key improvements brought about by the renovation will include expanding inpatient and outpatient operating rooms to better accommodate new technology and enlarging spine intervention (pain) center to improve patient access to this growing service.

“Part of the need to do this comes from the enhancements in technology …and all these fancy things that are needed to assist surgeons and staff and surgery just take up a lot of room,” Urban told the Journal-News. “They needed to be refitted and expanded.”

Other improvements will include redesigning the driveway and entrance to the ambulatory surgery center to improve patients’ ease of access to the building and co-locating inpatient and outpatient endoscopy for efficiency and an improved patient experience.

“It’ll improve the access to the care itself,” Justin Krueger, chief operating officer for the hospital, told the Journal-News. “Everything we do here is about improving patient health … for the community. We need to make it as easy as possible to access our system, our services for these patients.

“With increased operating rooms and increased technology, we’ll be able to provide the best possible care for the patients in this community.”

The project, which is expected to be completed by late summer 2017, will tack on an additional 3,000 square feet but keep the vast majority of the hospital in its existing footprint.

“We’re using the space more efficiently than we have … by redesigning it,” Urban said.

The other reason for the project, he said, is growing patient volume at the hospital, which sees 15,000 admissions per year, 60,000 emergency rooms visits per year and 2,000 annual deliveries, making it one of the busiest hospital’s in Greater Cincinnati area, Urban said.

The renovation is part of an “ongoing continuum” of Mercy Health doing what’s needed to provide great service to the communities it serves, he said.

Also continuing to grow is hospital staffing — now at approximately 1,400 — making it one of Butler County’s top employers, Urban said.

“We’ve been able to recruit some new, very talented surgeons and specialists to … Fairfield that bring with them training and expertise that allows us to expand even the types of surgery that we do,” he said.

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