Essentia Health preparing for the big transition to new St. Mary’s Medical Center

We are now 12 days away from the big move from the current St. Mary’s Medical Center to the new one. Planning for the big move has been underway for about a year now.

Teams are bringing items over constantly. And the major equipment moved is planned for Thursday.

“So about 70% of the equipment in the replacement hospital is new and then we’re moving 30% of the existing equipment,” explained Luke Eastep, co-lead of the relocation.

The patient move is happening on Sunday, July 30th.

“Health Care Relocations came at the beginning of June. And we spent a whole week doing a mock move, to test our routes through the skywalk and with the different elevators. It went very well,” shared Mia Lundquist, the other co-lead of the relocation.

Hundreds of volunteers will be helping with the patients.

Both Eastep and Lundquist said this is a once in a lifetime chance to work on a project like this.

Dr. David Herman, the CEO of Essentia, shared, “The science of healing and caring has changed so much. This has about 250,000 square feet less than the hospital we’re moving from. And that’s even with going from rooms that they call semi-private or double occupancy to all single rooms. But this will be a little bit smaller. That’s more efficient, that’s fewer steps for our patients, for the care providers and clinicians and for the families to come to visit as well.”

An employee open house on Tuesday gave people a chance to check it out.

And don’t forget about the Community Open House planned for Friday, from 11am-7pm.