Frank Lewis | Daily Times
Addie Herman prepares a display of balloons as the staff at King’s Daughters Medical Center prepares for an open house at their new hospital facility on Scioto Trail in Portsmouth.
Frank Lewis
PDT Staff Writer
A table of refreshments was set up, nurses awaited the opportunity to show people the new digs, and those performing health screenings had their instruments in hand. It was Saturday morning and the crew at King’s Daughters Medical Center on Scioto Trail in Portsmouth, were hoping the snow coming down outside wouldn’t dampen the spirits of those planning to attend the community open house.
It certainly had not dampened the spirits of the employees as they took pride in the beautiful new facility, set to open Monday.
“We wanted a chance to show off everything in the medical center, and actually letting people see something you don’t usually get to see,” Tom Dearing, Integrated Communications and Community Relations Director at KDMC, said. “We’re doing tours back through our surgical area. You’ll see our hybrid O-R, our four O-R’s (Operating Room), something you don’t get a chance to see, because if you are in there, you are probably in there for a procedure, so you are probably asleep. So this is our opportunity to show off some of the capabilities.”
The hybrid O-R allows for the full gamut of services.
“It’s a combination of our cath and vascular lab, combined with a surgical suite,” Sarah Duzan, RN, said. “Basically, we can have multiple physicians working on a patient at a time. You can work from either side of the table, and if a vascular case would turn into something a little bit more detailed, you can actually open a patient here and be within our sterile area. It can be a stand-alone O-R. It can be a combination of a vascular non-evasive procedure and an evasive procedure. So we can have three different doctors working on a patient at one time if the need calls.”
Alisha Hicks was showing people through the Orthopedic Suite.
“We’re going to be mainly doing orthopedic surgeries and ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) procedures,” Hicks said. “We’ll be doing joint replacement, arthroscopies, anything that we need. We’re very excited about that.”
Dearing said upstairs at the facility, free health screenings were being administered, including free prostate screenings, healthy heart checks, educational information was being given out, and some things were even planned to entertain the children in attendance.
Dearing said KDMC has fit well into the southern Ohio community.
“It has been a great reception,” Dearing said. “We actually started here in Portsmouth in 2007. We have been in Wheelersburg since ‘98. But when we built the facility, we generally had a plan for what we were going for. We started out with primary care, with some specialists like cardiology. And it grew from there. We had cardiac testing, urgent care came a few years later. We have more and more specialists rotating through, so I think our reception has just been great, and we’re happy to be here. We’re looking forward to growing with Portsmouth.”
Dearing said the facility will hit the ground running Monday.
“We open for business. We have several surgeries scheduled,” Dearing said. “We’ve got a nursing unit that is ready. Back on January 20 we opened our 24-7 urgent care. And we think that’s a great piece to what we are doing, because it really fulfills a need that is not always met in a lot of communities, and that’s sort of the difference between your family doctor, your primary care doctor, which is extremely important. And something like a full service emergency department. But in between is where we feel urgent care falls. You may need them on a night or weekends, or you just can’t get to your family doctor fast when you need care. So really urgent care works with your primary care doctor, or we can refer you to our E-R (Emergency Room) services. So we’re very excited about all of those.”
Frank Lewis may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 252, or at flewis@civitasmedia.com.
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