The opening of a new hospital in Prairie du Chien will be one of the major health care developments in the Coulee Region this year.

The 25-bed, 137,000-square foot Crossing Rivers Health Center being built across from the municipal airport is targeted to open in June, CEO Bill Sexton said.

When the current facility was built in the mid-50s, the standard was for bedside care, Sexton said. Today, its more for people who come in for treatment and are sent home.

Those who do need inpatient care will be in private rooms, he said, adding, Back in the day, rooms were semi-private. Weve learned over the years that outcomes are better with private care.

The rooms will have three zones one for the caregiver, one for the patient and another for the patients family, including a pull-out couch where relatives can watch TV and stay overnight, Sexton said.

The $37 million building, which is part of a $50 million project including land, amenities and equipment, is rising on Hwy. 18 across from the municipal airport.

It replaces a landlocked facility in town that has been renovated 11 times since it was built on grounds so cramped that emergency helicopters are forced to land on a church parking lot across the street.

The new hospital includes not only a much larger emergency department but also a helipad, the CEO said. Ambulances at the current building park outside and staffers brave the elements to bring patients in, but the new hospital will include a two-bay ambulance garage with closing doors, he said.

We have a good surgery department now, but we will have two operating rooms and a procedure room and can expand (operating rooms) to three, Sexton said.

Among the more than 60 services available at the hospital are general, orthopedic, ophthalmologic and podiatric surgery; obstetrics; rehabilitation, and other specialty offerings that will be expanded, he said.

Excerpt from:

New PDC hospital among top health care developments