Construction workers were putting the final touches on the modular medical office building at Jamestown Regional Medical Center this week.
The crews planned to have everything in place for the arrival of the hospital clinic staff and the Jamestown Veterans Affairs Community Based Outreach Clinic starting on Friday. The clinic facility is scheduled to see its first patients Sunday.
"This is the last step in moving out of the old building," said Alan O'Neil, vice president of finance for JRMC. "We'll use it as a clinic for at least a year. It may get repurposed as something else as we continue to grow."
The modular medical office building is a temporary structure moved to the site on 10 trucks earlier this summer. The 6,500-square-foot building sits on permanent concrete foundations with the interior remodeled to fit its new planned use. An entrance with handicapped accessibility was added.
"This modular building was built and designed as a medical facility," O'Neil said. "It had been used as the emergency room by the military at Fort Knox, Ky. We converted the trauma room into a new x-ray room using the old equipment from the previous hospital. We could do that because the new medical center got all new equipment."
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Moving to the new facility will be the hospital medical staff, the VA's clinic and any visiting physicians who saw patients at the old hospital.
The building will also serve as the office space for orthopedic surgeon Dr. Michael Dean as he begins practice in Jamestown next week.
"It's really very acceptable for working with patients," said Dr. Manuel Harris, podiatrist on the hospital clinic staff. "It has wide halls, larger rooms than the old facility and we have X-ray here so it's really convenient."
Harris said the computer system was integrated with the hospital system for better access to patient records.
The facility uses a single waiting room for both the hospital clinic patients and the VA patients.
"We're looking forward to moving into the new space as we continue to grow the clinic," said Jami Falk, CBOC manager from the Bismarck VA staff. "We know this is temporary until we have a permanent space."
The VA CBOC sees more than 800 patients a month with a staff of one nurse practitioner, one registered nurse and one LPN along with clerical staff.
"We will offer the same service but are adding tele-medicine capability in every room," Falk said. "We're trying to not have the veterans drive as far. We're adding additional staff to help with the tele-medicine."
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The modular office building sits about 100 yards southwest of the medical center. A permanent medical office building is planned to connect to the west end of JRMC with a planned completion in about one year.
"The permanent building will be built by the Davis Company out of Minneapolis," O'Neil said. "They develop medical office buildings and lease the space. We'll be leasing space from them along with other medical service providers."
Sun reporter Keith Norman can be reached at 701-952-8452 or by email at knorman@jamestownsun.com
