[02/18/02]Clear skies and moderate temperatures assisted moving day Sunday as nurses, physicians and ambulance drivers relayed 105 patients to the River Region Medical Center and the emergency room began operations.

“We planned for full capacity,” said Joey Ward, transport services director. Ward said the hospital moved about 60 fewer patients than had been planned for. “That made the process flow a lot smoother.”

ParkView Regional Medical Center, on Grove Street at McAuley since 1957, officially closed at 10:50 a.m., when its last patients a mother and child were taken to River Region on U.S. 61 North.

At the new facility, the first emergency patient arrived at 6 a.m., just about the time doors opened, and was admitted for treatment of kidney stones.

Today the $123 million hospital will begin seeing patients for appointments and its nine operating rooms will gear up for surgery.

“Of all the people here, no one has ever done anything like this and probably never will again,” said Keith Mason, chief nurse executive, of the move.

At 7 a.m., 14 ambulances began transporting patients from Vicksburg Medical Center, which opened in 1972 and now becomes a specialized treatment center, and ParkView. The seven intensive care patients were the first to go. The first was admitted at 7:32 a.m., and the last at 7:58.

Up to 150 transfers had been planned, but doctors worked to lower the patient count in anticipation of moving day, which had been scheduled for months.

“We don’t often facilitate hospital moves,” said Rummie Bishop, department manager for American Medical Response, a Jackson company that sent 10 ambulances for the move. “It went really well.”

The move was completed at 1:21 p.m.

Hospital executives and nurses watched the first patient come through the doors. “We’ve got the elevators up,” Mason said. “Can we get a wheelchair?”

“It’s the little things that nurses are worried about,” he said.

All patients went through a five-step check-out process:

They were evaluated by a nurse and doctor, in their rooms. All necessary supplies personal belongings, medicine, IV fluids, charts were loaded with them on a stretcher.

They were then taken to the ambulances, where teams of nurses checked them out of the hospital.

They were taken in the ambulances to River Region Medical Center.

At the emergency entrance, the patients’ equipment was checked into the hospital by the biomedical staff.

A team of nurses then checked the patients into the new hospital, filed their paperwork and wheeled them to their new rooms.

Hospital officials were hoping to move each patient in 45 minutes or less. “It is such a large-scale process,” said Kathy Gilbert, an ICU nurse. “We have been practicing and working on it.”

All three hospitals were in close communication throughout the day as Vicksburg Medical and ParkView Regional ushered out their last patients.

“When they leave we know where they’re going, when they’re checked in and when they’re in their rooms,” said nurse Jane Carpenter who spent the day in a command center, where employees handled problems and a patient-move database followed each patient’s transport.

Families were not allowed to ride with the patients, but a group of hospital employees waited at the front entrance to greet them. “When we get word the patient is ready, we get the family and take them to visit,” said Louise Derrington.

Patients were moved in groups first ICU, then telemetry and surgery patients. As patients began to fill River Region Medical Center, nurses and physicians began to leave the old hospitals and continue their shifts at the new one.

Ann Warnock brought her husband, Carroll, to the emergency room with eye troubles. She said they waited about 5 minutes before receiving treatment.

“It’s going to be nice having one hospital,” Ann Warnock said.

“It’s been a little confusing today, but it’s gone really well,” said Sandy Redditt, River Region’s emergency room director.

“We are just getting used to the flow here,” said Dr. James Carr. “It will be a week or two until we get everything real smooth.”