A major expansion project that will more than triple the size of the emergency department at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami is underway. The full project isn't slated to wrap until early 2027, but leaders aren't waiting to make improvements to current operations and patient care processes.
"When you move into a bigger space, if you bring less than ideal processes into that bigger space, your wait times don't get better, they get worse," Hany Atallah, MD, the hospital's chief medical officer, told Becker's in a Jan. 26 interview. "We have to engage every stakeholder in our hospital who's going to ever step foot in our ED" to ensure a smooth transition to the new space, he said.
Jackson Memorial broke ground on the $300 million project Jan. 23. When complete, it will be one of the largest EDs in the nation, spanning 178,000 square feet with more than 200 patient rooms. Plans for the revonation have been underway for years, with the earliest phases involving several iterations of the design.
While construction has started, efforts to prepare the team inside have just begun. On the operations side, the hospital is focused on improving patient flow through the department, Dr. Atallah said.
"Probably more than anywhere else in the hospital, the teamwork between the physicians, nurses and everyone who works in the ED is really key," he said. "Making sure that, number one, there is good communication amongst the team members and making sure we're maximizing some of the best practices in emergency medicine when it comes to flow are the things we're really working on today."
This includes efforts to ensure the team is aligned on the split flow model — the concept of treating patients who are lower acuity and can remain vertical or sitting in one area with one team of providers, and treating patients who require a bed in a separate area.
The first phase of the expansion is slated to be completed by fall 2025 and will involve moving the current ED into the new space. Once that happens, the current ED will be renovated. Plans are in place to ensure radiology and other services within the department go uninterrupted throughout the construction phases.
"What is the impact on other areas of the hospital also has to be considered — these are things we're looking very carefully at," Dr. Atallah said.
Jackson Memorial anticipates its emergency volumes will grow to about 170,000 patients a year across the next decade, up from the 100,000 it currently sees.