The Salem Township Hospital Board received an update at its Wednesday meeting on several improvement projects.
Chief Executive Director Jim Timpe says work has now been completed on the raised front parking lot project.
“We’ve completed our project out front,” Timpe said. “We did expand the ramp into the hospital just to enhance safety for the cars coming in and out… We also gave our employees a paved parking lot in the back instead of the gravel. I think that will be nice for them as we approach the harsher weather in the winter.”
Timpe expects to have a very preliminary plan for the operating and emergency room renovation and expansion projects for the August meeting. The board will be asked if they want to proceed to pricing and detailed plans. Timpe says this is a two-to-three-year project and he doesn’t expect ground to be broken until sometime after the start of the hospital’s next fiscal year in April.
Timpe says they continue to work towards conversion to the Epic Electronic Health Care Record System that will replace the Athena system now in use.
“That’s also going to give our patients a lot of access to their records. Quicker reports, they can see their results on things and they’ll eventually be able to make appointments and things like that through the system, so we’re really excited about it.”
Timpe says the ‘go live’ date is September 18th. He says Epic is the largest medical health care system in the country and feels Salem Township Hospital was fortunate to be able to utilize the system.
