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Mercy expansion plans highlight trauma services

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Artist's rendering of the $10 million expansion on the Mercy Hospital campus.

JANESVILLE — Attendance was light Wednesday at a neighborhood meeting about a $10 million expansion on the Mercy Hospital campus.

The expansion will accommodate a major new trauma service, which will include three surgeons dedicated to treating traumas 24/7, said Mercy President and CEO Javon Bea. The changes will mean transporting fewer patients to other hospitals, Bea said.

“It is important that seriously ill or injured patients be treated immediately and close to home,” Bea wrote in a statement.

Bea said Mercy currently transports less than 1 percent of its patients.

Bea anticipates the addition of trauma surgeons will improve emergency room wait times, which is a constant goal, he said. The decision to initiate a trauma program was based on Mercy’s desire to enhance the quality of care and not in response to complaints about emergency room wait times, Bea told The Janesville Gazette.

The demand for emergency room physicians is great, Bea said. He said Mercy is “close” to meeting its staffing needs, and he expects trauma members will be full-time staff members who will live in the area.

“As with all of our physicians and surgeons, they will be full-time members of the local community,” Bea said.

Along with supporting the trauma expansion, Bea said, new construction would support the new cardiology care and imaging suite.

Mercy Health Systems is proposing a 35,000-square-foot addition, said Kelly Lee, a development specialist with Janesville’s building and development services. The three- to four-story structure would include a 143-space parking ramp and a medical office building. The building would be near Franklin Street on the east side of the hospital campus and south of the Mercy Regional Cancer Center.

The project will be formally introduced to the city planning commission Monday, April 7, Lee said.

The commission will hold a formal public hearing Monday, April 21, and could take action that night on Mercy’s application for a conditional-use permit, she said.

The permit is necessary because of the size of the proposal, Lee said.

Construction could begin in May and is slated to wrap up in May 2009.