Memorial Health System breaks ground on new heart disease and stroke center
By BRITTONY LUND
The Lufkin Daily News
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
LUFKIN — Memorial Health System of East Texas broke ground Tuesday on a $30 million Cardiovascular and Stroke Center of East Texas, a 106,000-square-foot facility to be constructed near the hospital's emergency room entrance.
"This will rival any health care facility in any metropolitan area," said Trey Henderson, chairman of the health system's board.
The four-story facility will use "evidence-based" planning — including planning for air quality, building acoustics, natural lighting and colors. Those elements have proven to help patients recover sooner, according to Bryant Krenek, CEO of the Lufkin-based health system.
"This is a place to bring a patient who has a stroke," Krenek said.
When he first came to Lufkin, Krenek said, the hospital's 12-bed intensive care unit was always full, its intermediate care beds were full and the emergency room was at capacity with 36,000 visits a year.
"The new tower will address all these needs," he said.
Memorial will work with Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston to create a program to teach people how to recognize the signs and symptoms of a stroke. Krenek said 750,000 people a year suffer strokes, and many of them don't get help within the first three hours because they don't realize they are having a stroke.
The first floor of the new facility will house a 19-bed emergency department that will include two triage rooms, two major trauma rooms and four psychiatric rooms. A central sterile processing area will also be on the first floor.
The second floor will include new cardiac catheterization labs and surgical suites. The third floor will house the intensive care unit, which will include 24 beds. The fourth floor will have a 26-bed step-down/progressive care unit.
There will be a helicopter pad on the roof, but Krenek said it can be moved to make room for three additional floors in the future.
"A community is no better than the people that live there and the institutions that keep it going," Lufkin Mayor Jack Gorden said at the groundbreaking.
Construction on the expansion project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2009. For more information on the new tower, visit www.memorialhealth.org.
