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BRANDON D. OLIVER/Palatka Daily News – Wayne Placona, left, the director of facilities management at HCA Florida Putnam Hospital, and Brian Nunn, the hospital’s CEO, stand in one of the patient rooms of the new Med West Wing.
Hospital officials in Palatka are eager to open a newly renovated wing of the facility they said will provide a more welcoming environment for their employees to work and patients to recover.
The Med West Wing consists of 25 patient rooms, as well as the adjacent hallways and a nursing station, of a previously unoccupied area on the first floor of HCA Florida Putnam Hospital. Included in the renovations are new flooring and fixtures, refurbished private rooms and improved medical gas access to the rooms.
Wayne Placona, the hospital’s director of facilities management, said the revamped wing was designed to give patients and their families a modern, aesthetically pleasing environment to receive treatment. Nurses, doctors and other hospital employees can conduct their work more efficiently thanks to the scanners and other digital tools that have taken the place of the charts and wires that used to be in those rooms, he said.
“We’ve renovated this whole wing,” Placona said. “This whole wing, it’s got a new facelift. This is something you would have in your home. We know it’s not your home, but it’s going to make you feel more at home.”
Med West won’t open to patients until sometime after March, HCA Putnam CEO Brian Nunn said. After the official opening, Nunn said, the hospital will begin working on Phase 2 of the Med West Wing, which will be in the second-floor area directly above its first-floor counterpart.
Placona, who has been overseeing the $1.7 million upgrade, said 30 rooms on the second floor will be remodeled.
The hospital wanted to begin Med West construction before the COVID pandemic, which caused major delays, Placona said.
Other hurdles on the path to completion have been inflation and supply chain shortages, Nunn said. Not only have those issues hampered construction, he said, but it has also held up state regulators who need to inspect and approve Med West before it can open to patients.
“Materials have been a bear (to acquire),” Nunn said. “It’s really been challenging with the supply chain. We’re talking furniture. We’re talking floors, ceiling tiles, light fixtures.”
Rather than dwell on challenges, however, Nunn is devoting his energy to optimism. He expects the first floor of Med West to be approved to open shortly after the first quarter of the year.
He’s excited for people who need medical care to stay in the rooms and for employees to have an improved work environment.
The hospital surveys patients to learn what they appreciated during their stay and what they would like improved, Nunn said. Those results were used when designing and constructing the renovated section of the hospital, he said.
Renovations on the hospital’s emergency room were completed in December, said Nunn, who is anticipating the beginning of construction on the second floor of the medical wing.
“It’s exciting, but we feel encouraged we’re giving the community a hospital they can be proud of,” Nunn said. “A lot of people were excited to see us renovate the facility.”
