Martha Jefferson Hospital completed its move to a new facility Sunday by transferring 59 patients, including three newborns, to its new location on Pantops Mountain.
The four-hour process of moving patients concluded nearly a decade's worth of planning and work on the new facility, leaving the new hospital ready to serve the community, hospital spokesperson Jenn Downs said.
"Everything is up and running," she said. "Our daily operations have gone into full effect."
Although the development process and subsequent orientations to the new building required a lot of energy and dedication, hospital employees were excited about the new opportunities involved with the move, Downs said.
"We had many members of the team working from the very early hours of Sunday morning, but everybody seemed to be very excited," she said. "Everybody had been training and orientating to their new space, and we're excited to welcome patients and show off the new facility."
One of the most exciting things about the move is the space the new building provides for advanced medical technologies, said Amy Black, Martha Jefferson's chief nurse executive.
"We wanted the capacity to adapt and provide new services as they become available," Downs said. "It wasn't a hospital that was built just for today; it was a hospital that was built for the next 50 years and beyond."
The hospital also aims to create a more welcoming atmosphere for visitors.
"Our new facility is going to enhance the patients', families' and staff's experiences," she said. "We have all private rooms, lots of natural light and warm colors up on the walls throughout the hospital. It's a much more comfortable and inviting place to receive care."
Hospital employees paid tribute to the former hospital, commemorating its significance in the lives of its staff and patients.
"We had some special events at the old hospital, celebrating what the old hospital has meant to many of our patients and staff over the years," Black said. "We had a memory book that we put together that had a lot of old Martha Jefferson stories and memories in it. The cover was actually made up of all the employee ID pictures. When you looked at it from far away, it looked kind of like a Monet painting with a lot of brushstrokes, but when you looked at it close up it was the individual pictures of all the employees."
Such events helped longtime employees celebrate both their fond memories of the old building and the exciting opportunities of the new facility, Black said.
"Some people have worked here all their professional lives, so it was like leaving home for many," she said. "And it was like moving to a new home"
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