John Muir Mt. Diablo Health System Plans $400 Million Renovation of Facilities
The John Muir Mt. Diablo Health System plans to spend about $400 million over the next four years at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek and Mt. Diablo Medical Center in Concord to double the capacity at each facilities' emergency department, add parking, improve technology and comply with state seismic retrofit requirements, the Contra Costa Times reports (Harrington, Contra Costa Times, 5/2). Under the seismic retrofit requirements, hospitals must guarantee by 2008 -- or by 2013 if they expect to continue to use their buildings for an additional 30 years -- that their buildings will not collapse in a major earthquake. By 2030, hospitals must guarantee that their buildings will not collapse in a major earthquake and will continue to function immediately afterward (California Healthline, 4/27). At John Muir, the expansion will include a five-story addition, a six-story parking garage, a larger neonatal intensive care unit, a heliport and a new entrance and interior road designed to ease traffic congestion. A five-story addition also will be built at Mt. Diablo in the expansion. Both hospitals will have private rooms and separate corridors for contagious patients to help the facilities meet standards for privacy and patient isolation, according to health system President Ken Anderson. New technology, such as wireless charting systems and beds with sensors that monitor patients, also will be installed. The board is expected to approve final plans this month (Contra Costa Times, 5/2).
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