Hospital officials at Coral Springs Medical Center recently broke ground for a $21 million emergency department expansion.
Coral Springs Medical Center is a facility of Broward Health, a South Florida-based healthcare system.
"Back when the hospital opened 22 years ago, the emergency room was build to accommodate a city with a population of 47,000 people in Coral Springs," said Patrick Maloney, CSMC's CEO. "Since then the community grew but the ER never did. Today we serve a city with a population of over 130,000 people along with additional surrounding cities."
Maloney said the emergency department will more than double its current size from 12,000 square feet to 28,000 square feet, increasing the number of beds from 23 to 40 (26 adult, eight pediatric and six fast track beds), all in larger, private rooms with separate phones and televisions.
"Needless to say, this expansion will be a tremendous asset to the community because it will allow us to be able to care for more patients thus cutting waiting times significantly," Maloney said.
The expansion is expected to be completed by December 2010.
"We anticipate a decrease in turnaround time while increasing patient satisfaction," said Daniel Stone, MD, CSMC's emergency department medical director. "We see 48,000 patients every year now and we will now be able to take care of at least 60,000 after the expansion."
Broward Health is one of the five largest public health systems in the nation. In addition to CSMC, the system includes Broward General Medical Center, North Broward Medical Center, Imperial Point Medical Center, Chris Evert Children's Hospital and Broward Health Weston.