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Earlier this month, Bon Secours Harbour View gave the Suffolk News-Herald a look at ongoing construction for their new Medical Center.

On Thursday, Sept. 4, the tour showed off various areas currently in development, including patient rooms, operating rooms, nurse work stations and more. Alongside representatives of construction and development firm Hourigan, Bon Secours Harbour View President Andy Spicknall and Bon Secours Harbour View Vice President of Nursing Kristen L. McSorley was on hand to provide details on the facility’s upcoming features. Spicknall discussed the project’s construction, which started in January 2023 with the design phase starting a year prior.

“…and so we’ve been working with our clinical end users, our physicians on the design of the facility and then, brought on Hourigan as our construction manager, and we’ve been working with them on getting the project out of the ground,” Spicknall said. 

Showcasing nursing stations in development, McSorley says they are focusing on both “technology and patient safety.”

“But this nurse’s station will have not only patient information, but this is where documentation will take place. This is kind of where the nurses will kind of work out of this space in general,” McSorley said.

Showcasing one of the patient rooms development, McSorley says they will be a medical surgical telemetry area.

“…and this allows us to monitor heart rhythms, it allows us to take lower acuity patients – just meaning that’s what we based how sick a patient is –  but it gives us the capability of utilizing some of the most state of the art technology to interact with our patients,” McSorley said. “We are able to have just that innate ability to include family and really understand for the patient, ‘What is your plan of care?’ A lot of questions always come up with ‘What’s going on with me? What’s happening?’ So this will give us that capability to really keep the patient and their family informed.”

Spicknall followed up that their patient rooms are designed with the patient in mind thanks to feedback given by their caregivers.

“So when you look at this room, we’ve got a lot of natural light for the patient. We got a large family space, which will be up against the window. We’ve got a dedicated space for the patient in the center of the room and then we have dedicated space for our staff. So [our] staff has space where they’re able to work and care for the patient,” Spicknall said. “The technology that Kristen was referencing that will be integrated into this room is really state of the art technology that is going to allow the patient to keep up with their plan of care, with their testing results, and will really aid and assist them in their discharge plan, so they can get back home to their families.”

McSorley also showcased a future nurse’s work station nearby the patient room, which will have tempered glass to help nurses keep a “watchful eye” over patients but also allow for privacy during family visits.

“It’ll provide the nurse the essentials: their computer and any kind of items that they may need and it will be in this specific area with their desk, and it’s a standing desk, just to allow them to quickly document while they are still with the patient,” McSorley said. “My favorite part is to be able to [have] the safety feature, just for that nurse to be able to see into the room, but yet be at a distance and allow the family to be with the patient, but allow the patient to rest.”

Spicknall also talked about seeing the design and hard work come into fruition.

“It’s exciting,” Spicknall said. “It’s exciting to see the work over the last several years of the vision for this campus for providing healthcare to this community actually come into fruition and a number of weeks ago, we had the chance to do a walkthrough with some of our clinical teams that were involved in the design process. And for them being able to walk through and see these phases as they’re starting to come together and provide feedback on what works for their workflow, what works for their patients so we’re able to incorporate any changes that we need to, that was an exciting day. And we’re getting to do that again here in another couple weeks as the design has moved along.”

Likewise, Spicknall expressed how enthusiastic he and the Bon Secours team are to continue serving the Suffolk community.

“We’ve been in the Harbour View community for the last 20 years, and we look forward to growing with you and serving your healthcare needs,” he said.

Construction is planned for completion at the end of March 2025 with the Medical Center opening to patients shortly afterwards.