Walls to come down at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center Emergency Department

Asante Foundation hosts a groundbreaking event for expansion project

Every year, nearly 40,000 people come through the doors of the Asante Three Rivers Medical Center Emergency Department seeking medical — and potentially life-saving — care. That’s a lot of people for a department originally built to handle about 27,000 people annually.

“The expansion will have an immediate and lasting impact on the people in Josephine County,” said Andrea Reeder, Asante Foundation’s campaign director. “Once completed, the emergency department should accommodate growth for the next 20 years.”To address the increasing demand for emergency medical care in Josephine County, the emergency department is going to double in size. On Saturday, July 13, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Asante Foundation will host a groundbreaking celebration at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center.

A major improvement will be the addition of two full-size trauma and resuscitation rooms large enough to hold the size of teams needed to respond to a critical health issue. “Try to do that in a standard size room and you are truly elbowing each other,” said Chris David, MD, medical director of emergency services at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center. The hospital is the second busiest Level III trauma hospital in Oregon.

The expansion project includes a helicopter landing zone; a “hold room” and four “flex rooms” for patients with behavioral health needs; and 11 more beds. “These additional patient rooms mean shorter wait times for patients,” Dr. David said.

Emergency department services will continue to run at capacity during construction with work on the $12.7 million project expected to be completed in the fall of 2020. The expansion will be funded in part by community donations to Asante Foundation which has a $3 million fundraising goal for this project. For information about the ground-breaking ceremony, please call (541) 789-5025.