Mercer Health Hospital plans $24 million expansion, adds outpatient center amid demand

Mercer Health Hospital in Coldwater, Ohio will add a $24 million expansion to its existing facility, hospital officials have announced.

The project, announced on Sunday, will tack on 54,000 square feet to the current 119,000 square-foot structure. It will encompass a new outpatient center on the first floor, a surgery suite on the second floor and private inpatient rooms on the third.

Increased demand is the catalyst, said hospital CFO George Boyles.

"There are some things we can't do," he said. "We can't perform open-heart surgery in the hospital, but we can do a lot of other things, like keeping a family together so they don't have to travel between here and Columbus or Dayton."

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Funding will come from a number of different areas, including internal cash reserves and an as-yet undetermined sum from a borrowing institution.

But spokesperson Mindy Kremer said she hopes most of the cash will come from the community itself.

"We would like to open up to the community for them to donate and support us," she said. "A gentleman donated $1 million to us for this project last year, and we're hoping we can find some other donors of a similar financial standing."

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Those with shallower pockets will also have the chance to chip in. For years, said Kremer, the hospital had hosted an annual charity ball, which was halted in the early 1990s. That tradition has been re-instituted, which not only provides opportunities for community donations, she said, but allows them an opportunity to attend an event that goes beyond the slim offerings of their "secluded" location.

Patient satisfaction was also a catalyst for the expansion announcement. Through a daily survey, patients indicated they wanted more privacy in the same-day surgery area -- which currently separates patients with curtains. Private inpatient rooms were also cited as a need.

Growth in the patient services area will also be a focus of the expanded space, said Kremer.

"We need to centralize that and make it easier to access for patients," she said. "Also, our other buildings will all be connected, and will remain in service and allow us to spread out a little bit, and have better functioning and a better flow."

In the past couple of years, the number of surgical procedures at the hospital has grown by about 25 percent.

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Ground is expected to be broken by next spring, with an opening tentatively targeted for April 2018.

"We've been busting at the seams for a little while now," said Kremer. "It was very needed. Functioning-wise, the (current) space isn't working for us anymore. In order to serve the community for decades in the future, we have to do this."

Twitter: @JELagasse