One of the 10 new, state of the art Intensive Care “smart room” includes a remote video consultation system and infection-prevention enhancements. (Photo/Terry Lloyd)
The addition of a 20,000-square-foot, twostory expansion gives the St. Cloud Hospital vital increased capacity to care for cardiac emergency patients and adds a new 10-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This comes on top of the eighteen new Emergency Room lower-order treatment rooms, which became operational earlier this year.
On Thursday, Dr. Prakrut Patel, an interventional cardiologist with Orlando Health, performed a demonstration of the advanced technology used in the new cardiac catheterization lab. He also discussed how these procedures help diagnose and treat heart attacks and other heart-related conditions, including procedures to open blocked arteries to restore circulation and halt further damage to heart tissue, under circumstances where time is always of the essence.
Dr. Patel is relocating to the St. Coud area to head the hospital’s Heart and Vascular Institute, and his team will be able to provide high-quality care to cardiac patients on a 24-hour-a-day/365-day basis, starting this summer. Currently, St. Cloud area residents needing this kind of emergency cardiac treatment must seek care in other locations, wasting precious time traveling to Kissimmee or Orlando, often by helicopter ambulance due to the region’s often snarled traffic.
“The expanded cardiac treatment area enables the hospital to achieve ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) certification, required for St. Cloud and Osceola County medical first responders to take patients experiencing severe cardiac emergencies, by default, to our St. Cloud facility,” said Brian Wetzel, president of the Orlando Health St. Cloud Hospital.
The STEMI certification process for cardiology involves several levels of certification, each designed to ensure hospitals meet specific standards for the highest quality of care for cardiac patients.
The new ICU unit incorporates the latest intensive care innovations, including digital “smart” boards to ensure accurate communications among care team members relating to patient care and medical status. In addition, an in-room video consultation system enables the evaluation of patients remotely by specialists from literally anywhere in the world. The new rooms also include enhancements to prevent hospital-acquired infections, such as automated frosted glass, which eliminates the need for privacy curtains and screens. The rooms were intentionally designed to be somewhat larger, both for patient comfort and ease of care.
Bermello Ajamil of Orlando designed the hospital expansion, and the project management and construction contractors were Adena Corporation of Lakeland, and Barton Malow of Orlando. Hospital officials say the expansion was completed on right on schedule.
