This story was originally produced by the Valley News. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center has begun another multimillion-dollar expansion of its five-story patient pavilion.
The expansion is set to double the 64 beds currently in use in that section of the hospital, Tom Manion, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s chief operating officer, said in a Thursday video interview.
There are currently 460 inpatient beds in the medical center, Dartmouth Health spokesperson Cassidy Smith said in a Thursday email.
“We do have patients that we’re not able to serve because we’re at capacity,” Manion said.
Following the 240,000-square-foot pavilion’s opening in 2023, this expansion, which began in April, will be carried out over years-long phases on two currently empty floors of the building.
Sign up for the free Rundown newsletter for more NH news.
After the final phase of the project, which is set for 2028, DHMC will be able to admit an additional 4,500 inpatients annually, Manion said. Compared to current rates, this would be an increase of around 12% to 14%, Smith wrote.
With an aging New Hampshire population, currently the second-oldest state in the nation, the departments set to expand are those that older adults need most: cardiovascular, neurology, oncology, transplant, surgery and general medicine.
Of the 64 new beds, 32 will expand the cardiovascular department, David Duncan, the vice president of facilities management for Dartmouth Health, said on Thursday’s call.
The cardiovascular expansion “is directly related to the age and population,” Duncan said. “As people get older, there’s more heart issues.”
The 32 other new beds will be a combination of neurology and general medicine beds, Duncan said.
The particular department of the beds isn’t set in stone, as they can change based on the current needs of the population.
The expansion will also place related departments beside one another, so that patients and staff can easily respond to changing needs.
For example, the intensive care unit will be relocated to the third floor beside the specialty care unit, which is one step down in severity from intensive care, allowing for movement based on patients’ needs, Manion said.
Locating related units neighboring each other also allows for more “collaborative care” between different levels of physicians and nurses, Manion said in a Wednesday email.
Despite health care workforce shortages, medical center officials “feel pretty comfortable in general about the direction we’re heading,” Manion said. “We have offers made, we have staff coming, etc. But we have some more recruiting to do.”
