Maggie McKay (Host): If your hospital is under construction, you may need some information, especially if you're being admitted or just visiting. So today, we'll check in with COO of Jefferson HealthCare, Jake Davidson, to get an update on the summer 2024 progress.

Welcome to To Your Health, a podcast from Jefferson HealthCare. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Welcome back, Jake. Good to see you again.

Jake Davidson: Hey Maggie, great to see you too. I'm excited to share an update.

Host: Yeah, how's the construction coming?

Jake Davidson: It's coming great. We've made some significant visual progress. So, over the last two months, we've seen the walls, basically get tilted up and all the structural steel has gone in. And so, it went from really being able to see nothing to now you can see the whole building. So, lots of great progress.

Host: And can you give us an overview of this project? For instance, what is Jefferson Healthcare building and why are you building it?

Jake Davidson: Yeah, of course. So, gosh, three, four years ago, we knew that we needed to fix a building that was built in 1965. It was seismically and structurally just inept and it had outlived its useful life. And so, we looked at our options and, you know, remodeling a building from 1965 just didn't make sense. And so, really gave us an opportunity to look at what the community needs, what are services that we could put in a new building and how could we financially sustain a new building. So, we went through all that work, and we landed on tearing down the building, which is very complex because it intersects with three of our major buildings and we have to keep everything operational 24/7, and then building basically all new clinic space outside of a phenomenal kitchen, which I know everybody's excited about, but really allowed us to add new services and grow certain services. So, we're adding a new MRI. We already had MRI, but this is going to be a much better MRI than what we had. Growing our OBGYN clinic, growing our Dermatology, Hand and Plastics, and Wound Clinics. Adding a new linear accelerator, so being able to do Radiation Oncology. We will be the first critical access in the state to have a linear accelerator. So, all of our oncology patients that need radiation, they can now stay home and get it, which is really exciting. A new outpatient surgery center, which a lot of our patients really like. A lot of our physicians really want to practice in one where they can do a lot of their simpler cases and get patients in quicker and get patients out quicker. And then. Add new service lines, so Neurology, Pulmonology, ENT are all new service lines that we'll lift off with the new buildings. So, really, really excited to bring those new services to our community and keep care local.

Host: It sounds like a win-win all the way around, especially the kitchen for the people that work there.

Jake Davidson: I think as we've talked in the past, we moved our kitchen off-site to the fairgrounds, who now have a state-of-the-art kitchen. But the team's really excited. In fact, I was just meeting with Chef Aaron, who has this whole plan about opening to the public when the building's open, and all of those things that go into that. And so, I know that the demand is pent up. And so, that is a great excitement around that.

Host: Well, it sounds like a great project for the folks in the community you serve. What kind of work has been done most recently?

Jake Davidson: So most recently, the steel's been the biggest. So, the last couple weeks, and they're actually finalizing right now, I can look out my window and see them working, but the steel works. So really, securing the tilt up panels, so the concrete panels that make up the part of the building, and then the steel structure around the rest of the building has been the big focus. And so, they have put on the steel decking. And so basically, now most of the structures are not quite waterproof with the full roof on yet, but we're close. And so, that's been the biggest change over the last couple weeks.

Host: And what's coming up next for the project?

Jake Davidson: So next, they actually just poured the foundation for the linear accelerator yesterday. And so, a lot of work going around the vault for that, which is about six feet of concrete on any side so that radiation doesn't get out. And then, the roofing of the building is the next in conjunction to the big pieces.

And then, I think in October really the focus turns to the interior. So, we're not going to see a whole lot of work on the outside, but a whole ton of work going on on the inside of building walls and doing all of the structural piece on the inside. So, pretty exciting.

Host: Is there anything else you'd like to add that we didn't cover?

Jake Davidson: Another big piece of this is, of course, is parking. And so, back in January, we deconstructed a pretty large lot that we have, and we did a lot of incentive around getting our staff not to drive to work, and we've had some great results. I think, in the last three months, about 3,000 cars that we've kept off of the streets and parking here. And so, that lot is still being worked on, but we're hoping, November, December to get that completed and get about I think 80, 90, 100 parking spots back. And so, that's exciting. Our main parking lot, we've had to do some modifications there. And so, lots of work around ensuring that patients can park and get in. But light at the end of the tunnel, right? We're still on pace to get control of the building on July 18th of 2025. And we're working diligently through when we'll be able to see the first patient. And so, hopefully, next time we do one of these. We'll share more in the details about that.

On the flip, we have hired a neurologist. So, that was one of the added service lines. So Dr. Kelly Ramirez will be starting with us actually in September. So, she'll do a lot of televisits for us. We also have hired a pulmonologist who will start when the building starts. So, starting to be able to really say we are bringing those services. It's pretty exciting.

Host: It's all coming together.

Jake Davidson: It is. It's great. It's exciting.

Host: Well, we look forward to the next time we talk to you to hear the progress that time. Thank you so much for making the time to update us today.

Jake Davidson: Thanks, Maggie. It's always fun.

Host: It is. Again, that's Chief Operating Officer of Jefferson Healthcare, Jake Davidson. And to find out more, please visit jeffersonhealthcare.org. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Maggie McKay. Thanks for listening to To Your Health, a podcast from Jefferson Healthcare.