Personalized environment is key to new OB room at Gibson

GIBSON CITY A new obstetrics department at Gibson Area Hospital is intended to create a more intimate and personalized environment for mothers and their babies.

"Its a special time and we want to make it as positive as possible," said Dawn Merkle, the department's director.

The new unit, built in what had been a 10,000-square-foot empty shell on the second floor above the emergency department and some added space, is part of a $6 million expansion and renovation project that began in fall 2012. The addition will open when the state certifies it.

The new department has five private labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum rooms, which will allow expectant mothers to stay in the same room for their entire hospital stay. There also is a Caesarean-section operating room that is housed at the end of the second floor of the wing.

The new rooms feature infant care centers in which physicians and nurses can complete baby care without taking the baby from the room.

The new wing also features up-to-date remote monitoring technology, and one room also features a labor tub, which offers natural pain relief option during labor.

Each room is equipped with an in-room refrigerator, flat-screen television, Wi-Fi, and a foldout bed and linens for fathers.

While many of the rural hospitals have closed their obstetrics departments because of a lack of doctors trained in that specialty, Gibson Area Hospital has been able to expand because it has eight family physicians practicing there, said Rob Schmitt, CEO of Gibson Area Hospital and Health Services.

The remainder of the second floor houses six new private rooms, which will be used primarily for patients receiving hip and knee replacements and for some general surgery patients.

Those new private rooms feature bathrooms with showers, bathroom and room doors that open in and out, bedside medicine scanning and charting and communication boards.

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Personalized environment is key to new OB room at Gibson