The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is considering a major expansion in three of its main facilities -- diagnosis and treatment, outpatient clinics and cancer treatment -- and is currently in the planning stages of how this extension should be realized.
According to Susan Reeves, vice president of the medical center, the center is feeling a major space crunch and the expansion project is a huge one, which is expected to be completed by 2005.
Reeves said the construction of more outpatient clinics is one of the the project's main focuses.
"A combination of better technology and much better drugs have led us to be able to make the transition from in-hospital to outpatient care," Reeves said, adding that the current size of the outpatient clinics is proving too small to accommodate all the patients.
Reeves said that while in the past many patients had to be admitted to receive serious treatment like chemotherapy, vast technological improvements have allowed the medical center to handle most of this treatment from the outpatient wards without having to admit the patients.
Economic factors have also been responsible for the move to outpatient clinics; receiving treatment in such clinics proves a lot cheaper for the patients, Reeves said.
According to Reeves, the medical center's patient volume has been consistently growing at a rate of five percent every year -- another reason why the center has "outgrown our space" since it was first built in October 1991.
The medical center will be "adding onto existing buildings and building buildings to accommodate our growth," Reeves said.
According to Reeves another reason for the shortage of space is that the center has also started many new programs, which were not offered when the medical center first moved to Lebanon nine years ago.
She referred to the center's Air Medical Transport Program, which flies transport patients in helicopters and treats them at the hospital.
"Now we don't have any [more] room to be introducing any new programs," Reeves said. "We're physically constrained."
Reeves said the expansion is in its initial planning stages and that the medical center and its employees are trying to understand how much the center needs to be expanded.
The medical center needs to submit some documents to the state by Oct. 31 later this year and Reeves said in the best case, construction will begin by spring of next year.
Along with the construction planning, the medical center is also doing a financial feasibility study. Reeves said she also expects the medical center to undertake a capital campaign closer to the begining of construction.
