POWERGRAMS

35 to the le with floor to ceiling windows connects to the dining hall. A 26-foot-tall prayer tower is alongside another long hallway to the right, outside the emergency department. Between both halls, security officers will monitor all visitors while watching videos from cameras inside and outside the facility. The 330-square-foot patient rooms have a large window, sleeper couch, closet, widescreen TV, bathroom with sink and bench shower, and adjustable electric bed. Staff will use a bedside electronic screen rather than the traditional grease board to post patient medication information and status updates. Outside each room is a wall indention computer station for nurses and doctors to input information about each patient. "We'd rather be known for high-touch but we want to be known for high-tech, too," says James, who was the first non-Catholic in a century selected the top administrator at St. Vincent's. Among the important medical elements at TRMC is the GE 64 Slice whole-body computed tomography machine, which is an advanced CT that will be the only one in the area inside a facility. James notes that the huge imaging room built for the scanner is enveloped in copper with a 2¼-inch concrete floor to shield the rest of the hospital. TRMC will have two digital imaging rooms for X-rays, a mammograph services room with ultrasound, a bone density scan room, and four separate rooms with stress test and pulmonary function equipment, and for endoscopic and gastrointestinal procedures. "We will have the absolute latest of any equipment," says James. The surgery suite has two large operating rooms with sterilization stations just outside the entrances and decontamination areas at the exits. There are six pre-op private rooms alongside a large nursing station and anesthesia room. Electronic card access is required to enter all of the sterile areas. Doctors and nurses have adjacent bathrooms, lockers, changing rooms and a lounge. There are five normal recovery rooms, as well as an isolation room similar to the OR. Outside the surgery areas are four consultation rooms for family members to speak with doctors. The ER suite has a triage room, psychiatric lockdown room, two large trauma rooms and six rooms with sinks and cabinets for patients who are not sent into surgery. A decontamination room is next to the ambulance entrance in case of industrial accidents, and EMS workers have a room of their own upon arrival to TRMC. There is a family lounge outside the ER with a view of the hospital entrance. "I'm going to really know I'm successful when I go into the community and hear people say they were treated with dignity and respect here," James says. "This is not our company's hospital, this is the community of Thomasville's hospital. This is their place for great medical care." Chief Operating Officer James, right, with daughter/employee Jodie James.

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