After 15 years of being located at the west campus of Merit Health River Region, Promise Hospital of Vicksburg has moved over to the main campus of the hospital, located at 2100 U.S. Highway 61 North.

Michael McMillin, the Vice President of Physician Relations and Education, said the biggest reason for the relocation was to be able to better serve the hospital’s patients, and that it would be easier for any of them who were staying at the hospital to transition up to the sixth floor instead of to another campus.

“So we moved to the sixth floor of Merit Health River Region for our patients, primarily for their care that would be in an acute care hospital rather than a separate facility, and it’s more convenient for the patients, families and our physicians,” McMillin explained.

The purpose of Promise Hospital, which is a long-term acute care hospital, is to specialize in caring for patients that need longer care than a short-term acute care hospital offers. Promise Hospital has a staff that includes an attending physician, nurses, respiratory therapists, wound care specialists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, physical therapists and a pharmacist and dietician.

“Once a patient has met their length of stay, there are times that patient isn’t ready to go home, and the long-term acute cares were made for an extended stay,” McMillin said.

The average length of stay for patients is around 30 days.

Some of the common reasons for checking in are if a patient is still ventilator dependent, suffering from a debilitating complex, wounds, experiencing multi-organ failure, recuperating from spinal cord and/or a severe head injury, in need of IV antibiotics to treat infectious diseases or if they are experiencing post-surgical complications.

Promise Hospital is owned by a separate company from River Region, and will work as kind of a hospital within a hospital.

“For our long-term acute care, we have our own pharmacy, we house our own physical therapy department with our own gym, our own medical records and materials management,” McMillin said.

Promise Hospital moved their patients over to the sixth floor of River Region on April 24 and is fully operational. McMillin said he was pleased with the transition so far, and said that the relocation had made more diagnostic equipment readily available for the staff.