New Munson Medical Center ER to Open in 2007

Sometime after Labor Day, crews will begin dismantling the former Grand Traverse County Medical Care Facility on the Munson Medical Center campus. It will be the first visible sign of what is to come: A new $25 million, four-story building that will house a critically needed new Emergency Department.

Bulldozers and cranes will arrive on the job site this fall, but the foundation for the new tower was being laid long before the first footing will be poured. For months, behind-the-scenes work has been taking place to secure funding for the project. By the time the Munson Healthcare Regional Foundation officially announced its $10 million Emergency Department Expansion Campaign in June, $5 million in contributions and pledges had been received.

Community Campaign Launched
Heading up the capital campaign as co-chairmen are two well-known community leaders — Bill Anderson and Tom McIntyre — who are deeply committed to seeing the project completed. Both men are members of the Munson Healthcare Board of Directors, and both are impressed with the level of support and enthusiasm that the project is generating.

Bill Anderson, ER Campaign Co-chairman

Early response has been "very, very positive," said Anderson, but he's not about to sit back and wait for the remaining $5 million to appear. "That's still a very big number to me," he said. "We've got to get this thing done."

The community is being asked to support the project with $280,000 in gifts through the annual Centurion Drive.

Tom McIntyre, ER Campaign Co-chairman

McIntyre said he's optimistic that the overall campaign goal of $10 million will be achieved or exceeded. "This project will touch virtually every person who lives in the Grand Traverse region, either directly or indirectly," he said. "The people I've spoken to are very supportive and very enthusiastic. Everybody recognizes the need and the opportunity to enhance our Emergency Room facilities and capabilities. The new ER is designed in such a way to help us address our needs into the foreseeable future with fantastic emergency care."

"We're almost a victim of our own success," he said. "We created a quality place to go — and they've come."

McIntyre was a volunteer for the 1978 capital campaign to build the current ER. "Munson is very careful about going to the community to ask for financial help," he said. "Over the last 25 years, with all of the expansion that has gone on at Munson, a lot of the growth has been funded internally. This is a big enough project and an important enough project that Munson needs help from the community for it to be a success."

The Need Is Great
Munson's current ER was designed to accommodate 20,000 patient visits a year. Today, the ER is providing care to twice that many people. Today's staff is excellent, the technology is up-to-date, but the layout and size of the facility hamper the swift and efficient delivery of care.

It is not uncommon to find injured and ill people on beds in the ER hallway because all of the exam rooms are full. In fact, those hallway beds are used so frequently, they've been numbered.

Exam rooms are small and include three beds separated only by a curtain. Sometimes that's a problem. "We recently had a two-year-old in a room next to a patient who was out of control and unruly," said Nancy Fisher, a board member and an ER volunteer. "The man had to be restrained, and he was verbally abusive. The safety of that two-year-old and his family was not compromised, but his privacy and comfort were compromised."

The new ER will have 40 monitored beds and rooms will be designed to preserve patient comfort and confidentiality. Improved facilities will be available for mental health and substance abuse patients. There will be a private, confidential treatment area for victims of sexual assault. Designated space will enhance the treatment of patients with contagious diseases, and those who have been exposed to chemical or biological agents.

All of those capabilities are necessary and overdue, Anderson said, because Munson's ER has become the regional referral center for the 13 counties immediately surrounding Grand Traverse County.

"We're not just a community hospital anymore," he said. "We've become larger than ourselves. It is slowly coming into focus how enormous this situation is."

The new ER will occupy 28,000 square feet of space — about three times the size of today's ER — on the ground floor of a four-story tower. The second floor will provide space for an additional 30 beds for inpatients. The third and fourth floors will be shelled in only for future use. Architects are designing the structure so that two additional floors could be added later if the need arises.

"The question has come up — why didn't you build a new ER five years ago?'" Anderson said. "We were meeting other needs. We haven't been sitting on our hands. It's been one thing after another. Now this project is critical and paramount. It has moved front and center."

For more information or to donate to the ER Campaign, call the Munson Healthcare Regional Foundation at (231) 935-6482.