A look at one of the inpatient rooms located on the third floor of Parkview Kosciusko Hospital.

Text and Photos
By Brianna Pitts
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — Parkview Kosciusko Hospital staff recently gave an inside look at its new facilities in Warsaw.

Parkview Kosciusko Hospital hosted a tour open to local media on Thursday, Dec. 14. During this tour, Vice-President of Operations Jeffrey Rockett, Market President Scott Gabriel and Senior Vice-President of the Packnett Family Cancer Institute Megan Smith led media through the space while explaining the details of the 174,000-square-foot facility.

Parkview Warsaw opened to the public in January of 2016 with a standalone urgent care center as well as practitioners’ offices, attached with plans for this expansion in 2012, according to Rockett and Gabriel. When asked if there were any individuals who specifically influenced Parkview coming to Warsaw, Gabriel noted, “Dr. Gary Pitts was an integral part of bringing Parkview to Warsaw in the first place. He saw the need firsthand from patients for more accessible care in the area.”

In an interview with Dr. Pitts, a former physician who served the Warsaw community for almost 25 years from 1996 to 2021, Pitts spoke of the impact this hospital will have on the Kosciusko community and beyond. “I am confident this expansion will only further the direct positive results we have seen since the outpatient facility opened in 2016. The competition Parkview brought to the healthcare market in Warsaw allowed for growth to happen on both sides.”

When asked what drove this expansion, Rockett and Gabriel spoke of how a hospital was always a possibility and therefore, during the construction of the original building, they made sure everything was up to code to a hospital’s standards in case they ever decided to expand.

Rockett explained the expansion planning began in 2019, but briefly paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gabriel said the pause was helpful in this regard because they were able to provide new progressive technologies in response to the pandemic. One implementation was equipping 13 rooms with the negative airflow capabilities in the inpatient unit. This would allow for patients’ rooms to be sealed off to prevent certain sicknesses such as COVID-19 from spreading through the air.

The hospital expansion consists of four floors each with its own distinct services. On the ground floor there is a lobby area, a gift shop, a pharmacy, The Packnett Family Cancer Institute and an anti-coagulation therapy unit. Smith walked media through the institute and explained how they used patient feedback when creating the space. “We have exam rooms where the patient can meet with the doctors as well as infusion bays. We tried to emulate what we have in Fort Wayne and gathered feedback from patients on their preferences to ensure their comfort”. Most of the infusion bays are semi-private, overlooking a healing garden. The facility does have one private room accessible to patients if needed.

The second floor is their surgical unit, equipped with two fully functional operating rooms, with the potential to expand to four at some point in the future, as well as two procedure rooms,19 pre/post anesthesia care unit bays and a family waiting area. The third floor is reserved for inpatient, which is when a patient must stay overnight in the hospital for multiple nights. The inpatient rooms contain a bed, a family sitting area and a private bathroom.

The lower level will not open until April, but will have some pulmonary outpatient services including a pulmonary treadmill, pulmonary function testing, as well as cardio-pulmonary rehab. The treadmill and the function testing will open up in January, but the cardio-pulmonary rehab will open in April. Also on the lower level are a couple of classrooms, for both hospital use and community use, a 24-hour café and administrative offices.

Different services being offered at Parkview Kosciusko Hospital include:

• A full-service emergency department open to the public 24 hours a day, with 10 emergency treatment rooms and two trauma rooms.
• Diagnostic imaging providing state-of-the-art equipment for 3-D mammography, CT, ultrasound, fluoroscopy and bone density, plus MRI, Heartsmart CT scan and routine radiology.
• Outpatient lab services providing in-house testing of coagulation, urinalysis, hematology, blood gas and chemistry tests with a certified clinical laboratory scientist on staff 24 hours a day.
• Rehabilitation services will be available for all outpatient physical, occupational and sports medicine therapies.
• Specialty clinics allow access to services by specialty physicians, including an anti-coagulation therapy unit (ATU) to assist with Warfarin patients and monitor blood-thinner medication dosing.
• Parkview Physicians Group, which offers primary care services and specialty physicians on campus.
• Parkview Packnett Family Cancer Institute contains seven exam rooms and nine infusion bays, seven of which overlook a healing garden in a courtyard area.
• A full-service pharmacy.
• Surgery unit includes two fully operational surgical suites with two procedure rooms to support inpatient and outpatient surgical needs.

This expansion has created approximately 150 to 170 new jobs for the community. Rockett and Gabriel both expressed the hope to keep these jobs local while also prioritizing the best care possible for the patients served.