SMEH: Growing to Meet the
Needs of South Louisville

Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital (SMEH) will open an additional 33 private patient rooms in early 2009 to meet the needs of its patients. This will increase the hospital’s bed capacity to 247.

“The health care needs of this community are very important to us, and we will continue to grow to meet those needs,” said Tom Gessel, president and CEO of SMEH.

By increasing the bed capacity, patients should experience faster transfer times from areas such as recovery or the emergency department to their inpatient rooms. “We’ve worked extensively with our physicians and team members to ensure these rooms have the most up-to-date medical equipment needed,” said Gessel. “The equipment is easily accessible for the patient’s nurses and doctors to increase efficiency and delivery of patient care.”

Each room is equipped with telemetry monitors for patients who need monitoring but are not in need of an intensive care bed. In addition, each room is equipped with wireless Internet access and flat screen televisions.

The utmost care has been taken to design patient rooms that are relatively far away from what “hospital patient rooms” are thought to look like. Creating rooms that are patient- and family-friendly as well as health care-friendly is the goal.