NORMAN Norman Regional Health System is less than two weeks away from the start of its next chapter with the opening of the expanded HealthPlex.
As of July 29, the HealthPlex, located at 3300 Healthplex Pkwy near Interstate 35, will become Norman Regional Hospital.
The current hospital facility, 901 N. Porter Ave., will move acute care services including the emergency department, intensive care unit, surgery services and inpatient care to the now 694,146-square-foot campus, and it will become the flagship hospital and corporate headquarters for NRHS.
The expansion, which is part of the system’s $300 million Inspire Health Strategic Plan, includes a 96-bed critical care tower, ambulatory care center and a larger emergency department with more rooms.
There’s also some new technology to help patients walk again after an event like a stroke or a spinal cord injury. Norman Regional is the first in Oklahoma to offer a ZeroG Gait and Balance System.
Erin Barnhart, executive director of the Norman Regional Health Foundation, said the ZeroG system was funded by their $4 million Equipped For Tomorrow campaign. Barnhart said donors heard from both therapists and patients who used the system in other states and knew the results were outstanding.
NRHS Physical Therapist Ben Vandaveer manages the inpatient rehabilitation unit at Norman Regional. There are several overhead-harness systems on the market, but Vandaveer said Zero G is the first and only system for adult use in Oklahoma. He said the dynamics of the system allow patients to safely walk on the ground without the risk of falling, decreasing the risk of injury to both the patient and staff.
“It can facilitate. It can resist. It can offer challenges to balance by pulling patients suddenly and unexpectedly in certain directions, and it really gives us a lot of tools,” Vandaveer said.
Vandaveer said studies show that a fear of falling increases the risk of an actual fall.
“If we're able to safely allow these patients to train upright for longer, in a supported position where they feel confident, we get better gains functionally, and we allow our patients to train harder for longer,” Vandaveer said. And the ultimate aim then is to get them home safer and sooner.”
Mike Bumgarner, who is the first to use the ZeroG system at Norman Regional, attests to the importance of feeling stable and supported during walking rehabilitation. He said there’s always a fear that you could fall, even if there’s a belt supporting you, but ZeroG, with multiple harnesses, puts that concern at ease.
“This machine gives the ability to strap a person in so that psychologically, you feel very safe, which means that you're able to take direction and challenge and possibly taking risks that you wouldn't normally take,” Bumgarner said. “The fear of falling can dissipate very fast when you're in straps.”
Hospital staff got acclimated with the system during a demonstration Wednesday, and that’s just one box checked off during a busy month for the NRHS as they look toward an open house at the HealthPlex from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday.
A name change coincides with the move. The HealthPlex will become Norman Regional Hospital as the Porter campus transitions to its next phase with a focus on outpatient services.
The majority of the Inspire Health project occurred on the HealthPlex campus, which originally opened in 2009.
NRHS CEO Richie Splitt said overall, the strategic plan included about 1 million square feet of construction and renovation. For perspective, Splitt said the Omni Hotel and event center next door in downtown Oklahoma City is a little more than 1 million square feet.
Next week, Splitt said they will relocate inpatients from the Porter Avenue campus to the new Norman Regional Hospital.
“That’s done one ambulance at a time, one patient at a time, every five minutes until we get them all over here,” Splitt said. “July 28 that happens, and the next day, Monday, July 29, we are open.”
Splitt called the conversion of the Porter Avenue campus, which opened in 1946 as a municipal hospital, a reimagining.
Oncology services will remain there for the next year. NRHS will open an urgent care center on the Porter campus. A renovated education center for community events is close to completion, Splitt said. There’s also a new Behavioral Health Center on that campus with 48 adult psych beds.
Splitt said they will eventually demolish the previous hospital on Porter to make way for the future developments on the Porter Health Village.
“We're transforming it from inpatient acute care to an outpatient focus on health and wellness that prevents you from coming into the hospital to begin with,” Splitt said. “We'll have primary care on that campus and specialty care also available, as well as urgent care and room for future development as we go along.”
Splitt emphasized the move as “transformative” for both patients and employees, who he colloquially refers to as healers.
“It's a place where they can truly thrive so they will use the powerful tools like ZeroG to do the work that they do, to help in the healing process for our patients,” Splitt said. “It's the caring hearts and capable hands of each of them that really does make this (work). The other side of that is the enthusiasm and optimism that we all have to open this facility in less than two weeks because it really is a new era of healthcare excellence for not just Norman, but the entirety of this region.”
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