St. Mary's Health Care System is embarking on major construction projects to expand and upgrade its hospice house in Oconee County and the surgical suite, boiler operations and emergency fuel supply at St. Mary's Hospital in Athens.

"These projects represent a $13 million investment in further improving safety, comfort, and service for our patients, medical staff and visitors," said Tom Kruer, director of engineering. "In addition, we will be improving energy efficiency and creating space for future growth."

Work on one project, a $2 million expansion of St. Mary's Hospice House on Jennings Mill Road, is already underway. The project is expanding kitchen and dining facilities, relocating liquified oxygen tanks, relocating and improving the nurses' station, renovating all 12 patient rooms, and providing additional space for support functions.

"We built our area's first Hospice House in 2006 entirely with donated funds, and this expansion also is being funded entirely with donated funds," said Foundation Director Crysty Odom. "This much-needed expansion is possible because of the generous support of our Auxiliary and gifts from the friends and loved ones of our hospice patients."

Starting in early September, St. Mary's will launch a $6.8-million project to add two additional robot-ready operating rooms to its surgical suite. This project also will relocate and expand storage for sterile equipment, update the sterile core where surgeons and staff prepare for procedures, and provide a general "facelift" for hallways and other common spaces.

"This is an extremely complex project that will give us a total of 11 operating rooms," Kruer said. "We have been providing da Vinci robotic surgery since 2010 and need to bring additional robot-ready operating rooms online. These rooms will give us more capacity to meet increasing demand, not only for minimally invasive robotic surgeries but for all types of procedures."

To create space for the new operating rooms, the first phase of the project will relocate St. Mary's Cardiac Rehabilitation gym, Cardiovascular Services Laboratory, Rehabilitation Services and portions of Radiology's Special Procedures suite.

"The project will be great for those departments, too," Kruer said. "They will all move into beautiful, comfortable and modern suites that will provide improvements in efficiency, appearance and patient experience."

A major part of the surgical services project is improving the family waiting area. Kruer said St. Mary's will double the size of the current room, add a café-style refreshment area, update the restrooms, and improve seating, lighting and décor.

"Our goal is to create an environment that's soothing, comfortable, and pleasant, with plenty of light," Kruer said. He also noted that the updated waiting room will accommodate new technology to further improve the experience of loved ones while they wait.

The third major project will expand and update support infrastructure that provides hot water and emergency electricity. In this $4.3 million project, which began in late August, St. Mary's will expand the existing boiler room, add a third boiler and space for a fourth, replace and update heat exchangers, and double fuel capacity for the hospital's emergency backup generators.

"All of these systems are vital to our daily operations and patient safety," Kruer says. "The boilers provide steam for area heating, cooking and sterilization, and the heat exchangers move that heat from the boilers to our distribution system. The emergency generators provide electricity in the event of a power failure. Currently we can run at full capacity for about 60 hours. Our new system will provide power for 120 hours in case of an ice storm or other disaster that knocks out electrical service and prevents fuel delivery."

In addition, St. Mary's will install a centralized control system to automatically regulate the operation of all three boilers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This system will ensure an adequate supply of steam for the least amount of fuel, Kruer said, adding, "It's definitely an environmentally friendly approach."

If all goes according to schedule, the hospice house expansion will be completed this fall while the projects to expand surgical services and physical plant will be completed in early 2017.

Patients and visitors also will notice a fourth construction project at St. Mary's. Funded by donations, St. Mary's Auxiliary is creating a Veteran's Commemorative Garden at the flag court outside St. Mary's main entrance. Construction is underway and the garden will be dedicated on Saturday, Nov. 5, in time for Veteran's Day.