To see pictures and video of the remodeled ICU, click here.
KERNERSVILLE, N.C. – Today, Novant Health Kernersville Medical Center opened its recently expanded intensive care unit (ICU) on the second floor of the hospital. The unit, which doubled in size, is designed to provide the latest in advanced care for the sickest patients in Kernersville and west Guilford County. The remodeled ICU is part of Kernersville Medical Center’s ongoing $55 million expansion project, which also included adding a heart and vascular lab earlier this year and the planned completion of a new fourth-floor birth center in early 2024.
“We’re very excited to reach this important milestone in care delivery,” said Kirsten Royster, Novant Health chief operating officer for the greater Winston-Salem market, and president and chief operating officer of Novant Health Kernersville Medical Center. “While most people don’t think about the inner parts of a hospital on a daily basis, it’s vital that we continue to expand these life-saving services in proportion with the needs of our growing community. Ultimately, we want to offer the very best in high-quality and accessible care for our patients, so they don’t have to transfer to another hospital. This is obviously in the best interest of our patients. But it’s also more convenient for their family and friends who want to be able to visit at their local community hospital while also knowing that their loved one is receiving excellent, top-level care.”
Bringing advanced care and technology together
The remodeled ICU went from four to eight spacious patient rooms. The expanded space allows for more diagnostic testing and procedures to be performed at the bedside, thus saving critical-care patients from having to travel to different areas of the hospital for care. Outside of the ICU, the hospital also added five additional general use patient rooms.
“We’re very fortunate to have such a robust critical care unit in this community,” said Dr. Daniel Feinstein, Novant Health clinical physician executive, director of pulmonary and critical care in the greater Winston-Salem market, director of tele-ICU for Novant Health. “Kernersville Medical Center has been strategic over the years to not only add more procedural capabilities, like our new heart and vascular lab, but to also add complementary ancillary care services that are normally only found at larger tertiary medical centers. That means that patients, whether they’re coming in for a scheduled heart procedure or an unexpected illness, can know that we have the team, technology, surgical capabilities and the critical care support services that you would expect to find at a much larger hospital, available right here in Kernersville.”
Kernersville Medical Center is also on the leading edge of incorporating advanced technology into patient care. Each patient room in the ICU and throughout the hospital is now equipped with a new interactive digital tool for patients to provide real-time feedback on the quality of care they are receiving in the hospital. The goal: Empower patients to take a more active role in their personalized care plan. This technology is designed to not only improve communication, but to also enhance the overall patient experience.
The medical center also recently added to its tele-ICU capabilities by being the first hospital in the state of North Carolina to pilot Hippo Virtual Care, a new livestreaming virtual care technology. While Novant Health introduced tele-ICU capabilities in 2020 to provide more advanced care at its community hospitals, this new technology allows bedside clinicians to now wear a headset and share a live, first-person video perspective of what they are seeing directly with Novant Health’s team of remote and on-call intensivist doctors and nurses. These on-call intensivists operate out of a local care center and provide 24/7, rapid response critical care consult support for patients at community hospitals across the state. The Hippo Virtual Care technology was added at Kernersville Medical Center earlier this year thanks to the generosity of Novant Health Foundation donors.
The next phase in Kernersville Medical Center’s expansion plan is to complete construction of its new fourth-floor birth center, scheduled to open in early 2024. This will be the first-time maternity care services have been offered at Kernersville Medical Center.
Kernersville Medical Center opened in 2011, providing an option for patients who previously had to travel to Greensboro or Winston-Salem for health care. The hospital has expanded several times over the years to bring new and dedicated services to the area, including cancer, orthopedics, women’s health, neurosciences and advanced heart and vascular care.
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