New emergency department, training for medical students will be part of $100 million expansion of ThedaCare's Neenah hospital
Madeline HeimNEENAH - ThedaCare will spend $100 million to expand its Neenah hospital over the next two years, including a new emergency department, stroke center, a second helipad for the ThedaStar medical service and space for medical students to train in the Fox Valley.
Officials announced the investment at a Monday press conference. The project is creating about 200 construction jobs, with construction slated to begin Jan. 3 and completion set for fall 2023, according to a release from ThedaCare.
Updates to the hospital campus will include:
- Expanding and redesigning the emergency department with 20 exam rooms, including specialized rooms for trauma and behavioral health patients
- A second ThedaStar Air Medical Program helipad adjacent to the emergency department
- Enhancing care for stroke patients with a Comprehensive Stroke Center
- Updating operating rooms with advanced robotic surgical equipment
- Updating the Family Birth Center
- Creating new space for the Women's Center
- Redesigning inpatient space for behavioral health services and reintroducing the Day Treatment program to the hospital
- Creating "Main Street," a new first-floor area with outpatient services
- Designing a new dining area on the first floor
The expansion will also include space for a Graduate Medical Education program, which provides formal education and training for medical doctors and doctors of osteopathic medicine. Once completed, it will be the first hospital in northeast Wisconsin to offer such a program outside of Milwaukee and Madison.
RELATED: The Buzz: New businesses, attractions coming to Appleton, Neenah, Little Chute, more in late 2021
The project will be paid for in part by donors who support the ThedaCare Foundation-Neenah, according to the release. The foundation has raised $14.3 million of a $15 million community contribution to the expansion. The rest has been generated by the ThedaCare Family of Foundations and funds the health system already had in its coffers.
It's an investment in the system's anchor hospital, which opened 112 years ago at the wish of the family of Theda Clark Peters. Leaders hope the changes will push their care confidently into the future.
"(This project is) true to who we are, where we've been and where we're trying to go," ThedaCare president and CEO Dr. Imran Andrabi told the Post-Crescent Monday.
Like much of everyday life, the project has been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, though it was in the works earlier, said Lynn Detterman, senior vice president for ThedaCare's south region.
The redesigned emergency department, with 20 total exam rooms, will include 13 rooms that can be converted to negative pressure at the same time, plus individual isolation exam rooms and waiting rooms. They'll also add negative pressure rooms to inpatient floors that don't exist today, Detterman said.
"God forbid we have another pandemic — we actually are thinking that way now," she said. "Infection prevention has been a big part of this project planning ... that has been a component that, maybe a few years ago, we wouldn't have introduced in the way that we are today."
Beyond pandemic-related planning, physicians, front-line workers, other staff and community members weighed in to determine where changes were most needed, Detterman said.
From their current ThedaStar helipad, staff have to run nearly the length of the hospital to get a patient to the emergency room, Andrabi said — a problem the health system has been trying to solve for a long time. That will change with the second helipad positioned as close to the ER as possible.
The funds will also pave the way for another robotics suite for the hospital, which is a national training site for robotics surgery.
Andrabi said the Graduate Medical Education program will be key to making sure the Fox Valley has enough doctors in the future — an investment that "keeps giving forever." Research shows that physicians tend to practice within 50 miles of where they received training, he said.
Neenah Mayor Dean Kaufert and businessman and philanthropist John Bergstrom cheered the announcement of the investment Monday. Bergstrom said he'll be personally walking over to watch shovels hit the ground Jan. 3.
Construction partners include Cannon Design, Miron Construction and Hplex Solutions. Patients will be able to access regular care while it's being completed.
"What do we do today that sets us up for the future," Detterman said. "We are where people come for trauma, we are where people come for stroke care, high risk (pregnancies), behavioral health services. it was time to reinvest in all of those services."
Like Clark Peters, who died from complications from childbirth years before the Neenah hospital was built in her memory, Andrabi said it's possible that not everyone will be around to experience the fullest extent of the investment in the facility as it continues to grow.
But, he said, someone someday will remember that people "back in 2021" cared enough about the community to keep the hospital's legacy going.
Contact reporter Madeline Heim at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @madeline_heim.