QUINCY — The community got a sneak peek Friday at the new Quincy Valley Medical Center. 

“We've planned, we've thought about it, we've dreamed, and it's only because of the support of this community that tonight is a reality,” said QVMC Administrator Glenda Bishop at First Look, a gathering of community members to see what their new hospital will look like. 

The event included raffles, dinner and beverages as well as tours of the facility. The full tour took about an hour and was led by Madison Lee, who works in QVMC’s environmental services department. At each stop a staff member showed how the new facility would be an improvement on the old one, which was built in 1959. 

The first stop was the Family Care Clinic. Director Rebekah Garfield introduced the triage room, which doesn’t exist in the old hospital, she said. 

“We have a room that we use, but it you go into the clinic, it feels like you're having an appointment, but sometimes you're not,” she said. “It's not ideal, especially as COVID started to happen. We have to take (patients) in and then out, and the workflow isn't the best for infection control.” 

The new clinic has nine roomy, well-equipped exam rooms, Garfield said, as well as a large exam room that serves as a procedure room but isn’t officially called that.  

“We perform basic clinic procedures in here, like biopsies or sutures,” she said. “Anything that we might need to do as a procedure would happen in this room. This room is about three, maybe four times the size of our current procedure room.” 

The current clinic has five halls with three exam rooms each, Garfield explained. But they’re all broken up and separate, making it awkward to monitor them and move from one to another. Moreover, one of those halls isn’t functional because of leaks, and one of the exam rooms is being used to store holiday decorations. 

“We really wanted to keep everybody close together here, because we have people floating and helping other providers,” Garfield said. “This really helps facilitate that. I have all my (medical assistants) in one area. They can see who's busy, who's not. You can kind of visualize every exam room, which right now we can't do.” 

Next was Wound Care, which is vitally important, explained nurse Lupe Cortes, because you don’t know you need it until you really need it. The Wound Care department takes care of diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, burns, lacerations and surgical wounds, according to a display in the department. 

“The department currently has two shared rooms in the corner of the (emergency room),” Cortes said. “When we first started (in 2019) we were seeing five patients a month. Now we’re seeing 240 patients a month. We started with one nurse and now we have four nurses.” 

One way QVMC is on the cutting edge is in the use of placental tissue in wound care, Cortes said. Sometimes that treatment can mean the difference between saving a limb or having it amputated, she said.

Wound Care is also planning to add an infusion day, to administer medications to patients who would otherwise have to go to Moses Lake or Wenatchee, Cortes said. 

“We don’t (just) treat the hole in the patient, we treat the whole patient,” she said.

Radiology had some impressive new equipment, according to Manager Veronica Cruz, including a 64-slice CT scan machine. That means that the machine takes 64 thin, cross-sectional images all at once during each rotation of the scanner. The faster the machine scans, the higher the image resolution and the less time patients must hold their breath, Cruz said.  

“We currently have a 16-slice (scanner) out in a trailer by our ER, and we take our patients out in the lift,” she said. “We've been doing that for over 25 years. We're really, really excited to actually have CT inside.” 

The department also has a brand-new ultrasound machine, Cruz said. 

The emergency room is specially designed to facilitate the patient’s process from the front door to triage to wherever they need to go, said manager Vanessa Diaz. The first four rooms are for basic things like lacerations, Diaz said, and then there are a couple of specialized rooms. One is for patients with mental health issues, she said, with a metal wall that rolls down like a garage door to protect the equipment and so patients can’t hurt themselves. 

“(The room) is soundproof,” Diaz said. “We have a camera here in the corner where we can observe them and a window where we can look in and make sure they’re OK.” 

There’s a trauma room for treating gunshot wounds and car crash injuries, Diaz said, that’s climate-controlled to stay humid, preventing injured tissue from drying out. The room next door can serve as a trauma room but is also a negative-pressure room, Diaz explained. 

“That means if anybody were to come in with airborne illnesses, we can put them in this room and it will filter all that air out,” she said. “We kind of seal them in if a patient is contagious.” 

Outside the emergency room, the ambulance bay, the helipad and the sidewalks are all heated, Lee said, so they won’t freeze up in the sometimes bitter Basin winters. 

The Physical Therapy department has a brand-new pool, said manager Amy York. It holds 2,000 gallons and is equipped with a treadmill on the bottom and a chair lift for patients who can’t get in and out on their own. 

“The level of the water goes up and down,” York said. “We played around with that today. It is four foot six (deep) right now, that's the highest. It will go down to four feet, lose six inches, in less than five minutes. It's pretty amazing, how fast (it goes down) and then back up again. There's a receptacle underneath that stores that water and then brings it right back.” 

There will be a ribbon-cutting at the new facility May 14, according to the QVMC website, and the hospital will be open to patients May 21. The old building will be demolished as soon as possible, Lee said, to make room for more parking. 

The Quincy Valley Hospital Foundation has supported the hospital over many years, Bishop said, since it was founded in 1992. 

“We have a certified wound care nurse because of the foundation,” she said. “We have had software upgrades in our emergency department because of the foundation. Years ago, we had absolutely no wheels for our maintenance department … we needed something to be able to haul stuff back and forth so that we could do repairs on this old building. The foundation took care of that too.” 

The new hospital is the result of the community coming together and making it happen, Bishop said Friday after the tours had concluded. 

“(This is) the hospital that you built, and will serve this community hopefully for the next 65 years the way (the old) one has,” she said. “We look forward to bringing you into this building for more events. We hope you'll come here for community education. We hope you'll come here to share with us during board meeting events. But most of all, we hope that you are proud of the hospital that you built.” 

Lupe Cortes's last name was incorrect in the initial version of this article and has been corrected above.

    Attendees at Quincy Valley Medical Center’s First Look event enjoy a light meal and drinks.
  

    Family Care Clinic Director Rebekah Garfield discusses some of the advantages the new Quincy Valley Medical Center will have over the existing facility.
  

    A dummy occupies the bed in Quincy Valley Medical Center’s new trauma room.
  

    Radiology Manager Veronica Cruz introduces QVMC’s new, higher-quality CT scan machine.
  

    The art on the walls of the new Quincy Valley Medical Center was created by local artists and photographers.