NNMC opens expanded ER

Promises are easy to make.

They're sometimes challenging to honor.

Six years ago, Northern Nevada Medical Center promised that a nurse would see emergency room patients within 15 minutes.

If the promise wasn't kept, the hospital visit would be free.

It's a sharp marketing hook, one that drew patients from Reno and throughout the region to the hospital just off Vista Boulevard in Sparks.

But it also proved to be a challenging promise to meet as business grew by 58 percent in six years as a result of the savvy marketing as well as the nearly 35 percent population growth experienced by Sparks since 1990.

Hospital officials believe they'll get years of breathing room, however, from a 9,500-square-foot addition that just opened to house the medical center's emergency and diagnostic imaging departments.

The next step remodeling the space previously occupied by the two departments is expected to be complete next month.

Q&D Construction Inc.

of Sparks is the contractor on the job which was designed by Timothy J.

Massanari of TJM Inc.

The $5.2 million cost was financed by Northern Nevada Medical Center and its parent company, Universal Health Services.

Jim Pagels, chief executive officer of the 20-year-old hospital, said Northern Nevada Medical Center clearly had outgrown the previous space.

"This expansion allows us room to meet community needs for emergency care as well as diagnostic imaging for the coming years, which are sure to become even busier in these critical departments," Pagels said.

The waiting area in the new emergency room is triple the size of the old waiting room.

Once the remodeling project is complete, treatment areas will increase to 18 from eight beds.

Special treatment areas are dedicated for eye and ear injuries as well as other critical conditions.

And wheeled electronic carts that will arrive soon will allow bedside registration of patients.

In the diagnostic imaging area, the hospital added new MRI and nuclear medicine equipment.

The radiology department will be 70 percent bigger once the work is completed.

The south entrance to the emergency room has been reopened as the first phase of construction is completed.

The temporary emergency route on the east side of the hospital no longer is used.