Grandview Medical Center public open house
How to go
What. The public is invited to an open house at Grandview to see the recently finished renovation, expansion project. The open house will have free health screenings, healthy snacks, balloon artists and face painters for children, and guest Dayton Dragons mascot Gem
When. 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, June 2
Where. Grandview Medical Center, 405 W. Grand Ave., Dayton
Why. See the hospital's biggest facility upgrades in about 25 years
Grandview Medical Center recently completed the hospital’s biggest facility upgrade in about 25 years.
Construction crews are putting the finishing touches on an approximately $40 million, 70,000-square-foot renovation and expansion project at Grandview, 405 W. Grand Ave., Dayton.
The project moved departments around to better streamline hospital services, and included construction of a five-story tower for patient rooms, services, new lobby area, restaurant-style kitchen and new main entrance to the hospital.
A dedication ceremony is Tuesday to celebrate with government and hospital officials, and a public open house is June 2.
The project had two main goals; one was to move pre- and post-surgical units and operating rooms next to each other on the same third floor, said Richard Haas, president of Grandview Medical Center System, in an exclusive interview. That was the most important thing, Haas said.
Before, the pre- and post- surgery areas were on different floors and in different buildings as the operating rooms, he said.
The $40 million project’s other key goal was to make outpatient services easier to access. It changed the front entrance to the hospital, putting it front and center so it’s the first thing visitors and patients see. More of the hospital’s revenues now come from outpatients, for same day surgeries and services, than come from inpatients who are admitted overnight, he said.
The project is “significant in that it brought these services closer together to the central core of the hospital to improve our visibility to our outpatients. The surgical experience of the patient should be better,” Haas said.
“It also added space so … in the near future we hope to add private beds to the campus for patient convenience and that would allow us to, approximately 90 percent of the time, have private beds for patients on this campus where right now a majority of the time it’s semi-private rooms,” Haas said.
Two floors in the new tower are empty now, but contain space for 50 private rooms for use in the future, he said.
Grandview is licensed for 411 beds, but actually staffs closer to 200, according to hospital officials.
Construction started on the renovation in August 2010.
In addition to moving surgery services next to each other, and improving access, the project also moved Dayton’s busiest endoscopy unit. Endoscopy, which involves procedures to look inside the body, moved one floor up to the fourth floor in bigger space, hospital officials said. The unit went from three procedure rooms to eight, although four of them are also designated for future use.
With the completion of the project, most outpatient services can now be accessed from the new main lobby elevators including surgery, laboratory, imaging and endoscopy.
The changes make it so “patients don’t have to walk as far,” Haas said.
Volunteers at the front door can also take patients where they need to go.
“If you’re not feeling good as a patient, every step makes a difference as far as convenience. Just wayfinding or signage and getting lost in a hospital sometimes can be very difficult,” he said.
Along with the renovations, an old obstetrics building from the late 1950s was demolished. The building had sat empty except for a kitchen and cafeteria after maternity services moved several years ago to sister hospital Southview Medical Center.
The old kitchen and cafeteria was replaced by a restaurant-style kitchen in the new wing. And the dining upgrade also changed the way the hospital serves food to patients. The patients now pick what they want to eat from a menu.
Grandview Medical Center was founded in 1926 as Miami Clinic and later renamed Dayton Osteopathic Hospital. It is an osteopathic teaching hospital and at one time in the 1970s, was the largest osteopathic teaching hospital under one roof in the country, according to Kettering Health.
The hospital, located in north downtown Dayton, became part of the Kettering Health Network nonprofit group in 1999.
The Grandview Medical Center System now includes sister hospital Southview Medical in Centerville; Huber Health Center Urgent Care, which opened in 2011; and Preble County Medical Center in Eaton, among other outpatient locations.
Grandview alone has more than 1,100 employees.
Kettering Health, a group of eight hospitals, is one of Montgomery County’s largest employers of more than 10,000 people.
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