Construction Update
January 4, 2007

It’s the beginning of the New Year and we are headed directly into the development of our new Butler Health System.

To keep you abreast of this exciting project, we will be providing regular construction updates. Stop back regularly and keep apprised of what is happening with the BMH project. Right now the focus is heavily on the new patient tower on the East Brady St. campus, with lots of planning on its way.

We have established a structure to manage this project. Larry Moore, formerly assistant to the President, has been appointed Senior Project Manager and will have overall responsibility for coordinating all activities relating to the planning, design and construction of our new patient tower. In this role, Larry serves as Chair of the Project Steering Committee, which has been meeting for the past six weeks. Other members of the Project Steering Committee include CEO Ken DeFurio, VP of Patient Care Services Maureen Gray, R.N., CFO Anne Krebs, Senior VP of Business Development and Strategic Planning Rick Allen, VP of Quality and Safety Tom McGill, M.D., Director of Facilities and Engineering Rich Smith, and Project Management Consultant Kevin Stansbury. This group meets every two weeks. After each Project Steering Committee meeting, a project update will be issued to keep you informed of our progress. 

In November, we asked several health care planning firms to submit proposals for the planning portion of our project. Our goal was to find professionals to help us identify ways we can improve the way we take care of our patients and the community. The selection committee, made up of representatives from administration and the Board of Trustees, has identified four finalists who will be interviewing with the selection committee later this week. Shortly after a choice is made, we’ll begin to ask our doctors and staff to help us in the process. If you have ideas, we’d love to hear them too. Send them to us at our e-mail: pr@butlerhealthsystem.org or write us at:

Construction Project
C/O Administration
Butler Memorial Hospital
911 East Brady St.
Butler, PA  16001

Soon we’ll be developing “user” groups of doctors, nurses and other hospital employees to help us determine what care should look like in the future. We’ll start with an orientation for members of these “user groups” to help them all clearly understand the priorities of the project and set the tone for the planning and programming meetings. As we identify new ways to do things, we’ll have some community meetings to share our ideas as well as gather yours. 

Part of our planning process is to research how other hospitals have expanded and improved their patient care. We’re planning to visit hospitals around the country as part of our research, and will ask some of our doctors, nurses and other staff to make these visits with representatives from administration. When these visits are finished, we’ll share what we learned with everyone. 

We’ve also been discussing the future of the Nixon/Sarver Building. We’ve not yet determined exactly when we’ll need to demolish the building; however, we’ve started to study how this will affect our patients and staff. Before a final decision can be made, we need to better understand the soil conditions on our campus and where the new facility will best connect to our existing buildings. 

We’ve also started talking with local and state officials about their requirements for our new building. We’ll be providing regular updates throughout the course of the project. Stop back here from time to time and we’ll share our progress with you.