Doctors Hospital breaks ground on expansion

A rendering of the emergency room expansion at Doctors Hospital in Sarasota. RENDERING PROVIDED BY DOCTORS HOSPITAL

SARASOTA - Leaders of Doctors Hospital broke ground on the facility's new emergency room and operating rooms Thursday.

The construction projects will complete a $17 million expansion and renovation for the hospital, built in 1995.

This is the most significant expansion at our hospital in the 20 years since this campus was built, said Bob Meade, CEO of Doctors Hospital.

The expansion comes after three years of capacity-exceeding patient volumes at the hospital, said Steve Young, chief operating officer of the hospital.

We see that the east side of the county is going to be the big growth area in the coming years, and we want to be this region's community hospital, Young said.

The new emergency room will be completed in phases. The first phase will see the construction of a new wing of the emergency room, completed by November 2015. Then, in the second phase stretching from November to March 2016, the current emergency room will undergo a major renovation.

When complete, the new emergency room will have 19 private patient rooms, including two critical care resuscitation areas and a behavioral health bay for patients experiencing a mental health emergency.

During construction, the emergency room will have a 13-bed capacity at all times, hospital officials said. Patients will be brought to the emergency department through the hospital main entrance, instead of the current ambulance area, Young said.

In addition to the emergency room construction, the hospital will also add two new operating rooms on the second floor, to also be completed in November. Those rooms will be built to accommodate a large surgical team and include a sound system for patients to listen to calming music while they're getting prepped for surgery.

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Doctors Hospital breaks ground on expansion