City of Folsom Completes $1 Million Commitment to ED
Folsom, CA, July 8, 2008
- Folsom’s Mayor Eric King and City Manager Kerry Miller today will present Mercy Hospital of Folsom with a check for $600,000, which completes the City’s $1 million commitment to the local community hospital to support the expansion of emergency services. Mercy Folsom proudly opened the first phase of its newly constructed Emergency Department in June after receiving licensing from the California Department of Public Health.
“We are so grateful to the City of Folsom. Their donation reflects a strong commitment to ensuring that Folsom and the surrounding region has adequate emergency care infrastructure, capacity and capability to serve residents today, and a growing population in the future,” said Mercy Hospital of Folsom’s President, Don Hudson. “We thank our City leaders for making this a priority.”
Mercy Hospital of Folsom now has improved access to emergency care for area residents; a pressing need considering the breadth of the local hospital’s service area, which includes all of Folsom, Orangevale, El Dorado Hills and surrounding foothill communities, and parts of Rancho Cordova, coupled with the explosive population growth over the last ten years. The 22,410-square-foot, $27 million ED is the first step in a multi-phased expansion designed to meet the healthcare needs of the burgeoning region Mercy serves. “We ask for your patience during the next few months, as the second part of our Emergency Department expansion is completed,” says Don Hudson, Hospital President. While the facility’s former seven-bed ED undergoes renovation to become a new and expanded waiting room/lobby, five of the 25 new rooms will serve as a temporary waiting and triage area.
On October 11, 2005, the Folsom City Council voted to pledge $1 million to Mercy Hospital of Folsom and Mercy broke ground on the ED in the fall of 2006. Construction progressed ahead of schedule. “The new ED marks another milestone in our 28-year heritage of caring for our community. As the sole emergency department in the Folsom area, it is vitally important that we grow our facilities to keep pace with the communities we serve,” says Hudson. “It has been exciting and gratifying to see the construction progress. The new unit is a jewel.
” The new unit also incorporates the healing principles of color and art. Each of the rooms is designed to help quell patient anxiety, featuring earth tones and photographs of natural scenes from the Folsom and foothills region. A group of local artists known as “Folsom’s Finest” donated their talents, collaborating on a major work of art to hang in the Emergency Department lobby when refurbishment is complete in the fall of 2008.
Funding for the new Emergency Department was a true community and city effort. Hundreds of individuals and businesses responded to the Mercy Folsom Community Council’s efforts to raise more than $5 million to complete the project as planned. A $2 million lead gift by William and Claudia Cummings resulted in the new department bearing the name, “Cummings Emergency Pavilion.” The City of Folsom helped push the campaign to the finish line with its $1 million commitment.
Later this fall Mercy Hospital of Folsom plans to begin construction on a new 21-bed post critical care/telemetry unit in the area immediately below the new pavilion. Read future editions of Living Well to get updates on how Mercy is growing to meet the healthcare needs of our community.
Hand-in-hand with the new Emergency Department, Mercy Folsom recently completed a $6.4 million investment in digitally compatible diagnostic imaging technology. The investment runs the gamut, from a 4-D ultrasound machine to a state-of-the-art hybrid Nuclear Medicine/Computed Tomography (CT) system. The centerpiece of the imaging upgrades is a new 64-slice CT scanner, which was installed earlier this spring. The new scanner, capable of performing a full body scan in as little as 20 seconds, will significantly assist physicians in precise and rapid diagnoses, when minutes and seconds count.
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About Mercy Folsom Hospital
Mercy Hospital of Folsom, an 85-bed acute care hospital located at 1650 Creekside Drive in Folsom, is committed to providing excellent healthcare for the Folsom, El Dorado Hills and foothill communities. As these communities grow, the hospital continues to expand its services to meet the needs of area families.
