SAFFORD — While continues on Mt. Graham Regional Medical Center’s second medical office complex, hospital officials are already making plans for the next round of expansion.
During a recent tour of the 32,000 square-foot Medical Office Complex Building 2, that will house Mt. Graham Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mt. Graham Orthopedics, Mt. Graham Spine and Pain, and Roadrunner Rehab; hospital Chief Operating Officer Eric Neal said the hospital is making plans for a two-story expansion of the main hospital building, to include expanded surgery and emergency departments.
“It’s something that we hope to move forward with in the next year; to start construction,” Neal said.
The Finance Committee for the hospital’s Board of Directors gave the go-ahead to begin design of the expansion, which will also include the addition of MGRMC Wound Care in Medical Office Complex Building 1, and the start of a cardiology program with interventional cardiologists.
– David Bell Photo/Gila Valley Central
Estimated cost of the expansion — which will be the largest since 1973 — is $80 million to $100 million.
In the interim, the hospital is planning ground-breaking in March for two more projects — an outpatient pharmacy that will serve the entire community as well as hospital patients; and a second Copper Mountain Clinic on the Thatcher campus of Eastern Arizona College, serving EA students as well as the western portion of the Gila Valley.
Neal said it’s expected that Medical Office Complex Building 2 should be open and serving the public by late summer or the early fall.
In an e-mail, Danny Smith, director of Marketing and Community Relations, said visits to MGRMC have increased by 30 percent over the past four years, including:
- 22,388 visits to the Emergency Room
- 2,691 admissions
- 3,270 surgeries
- 44,117 images
- 196,977 lab tests
- 48,937 visits to clinics
- 40,470 therapy visits
- 561 births
- 9,763 respiratory treatments
- 5,210 visits to specialty clinic
