Dublin’s Fairview Park Hospital begins intensive care unit expansion project – 41NBC News

The expansion of the intensive care unit at Fairview Park Hospital is expected to increase capacity, reduce wait times and improve outcomes for patients in central Georgia.

DUBLIN, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Fairview Park Hospital in Dublin has begun a year-long intensive care unit expansion project that is expected to be completed in spring 2025. The goal of the project is to improve healthcare services in the region.

According to a press release from Fairview Park Hospital, the hospital’s parent company, HCA, has invested in a 50% increase in the hospital’s intensive care unit capacity. This expansion will increase the current intensive care unit from 16 to 24 beds, adding eight intensive care beds. This increase is expected to benefit County Dublin-Laurens and many rural communities that rely on Fairview Park Hospital for advanced medical care.

“Our ICU is full almost every day, largely because we serve a much larger community than Dublin-Laurens County,” said Don Avery, FACHE, president and CEO of Fairview Park Hospital. “We serve nearly a dozen surrounding counties and need to be able to better meet some of those higher-level needs as a regional referral hospital in central Georgia. This will have a significant impact on the community.”

During the expansion project, part of the hospital’s third floor has been temporarily closed to use. In addition to adding new ICU beds, the hospital will upgrade the remaining patient rooms on the third floor. Avery expects disruption from patients and visitors to be minimal, and the construction areas will be blocked from public view, but there may be more noise during the workday as the demolition phase begins.

The addition of eight ICU beds will positively impact several key aspects of patient care at Fairview Park Hospital. Increased ICU capacity means shorter wait times in the emergency department because critical care patients have faster access to available beds. This expansion will also reduce the need to transfer patients to other hospitals due to capacity constraints and will allow Fairview Park to accommodate more transfers from other facilities, allowing more patients to stay closer to home.

Tami Thomsen, RN, BSN, CCRN, ICU Director, says, “We know that timely access to a bed for our critically ill patients is paramount to their journey. This will allow us to reach more patients and provide high-quality care to more people in need.”