St. John Providence Health System received approval this week from its corporate parent, St. Louis-based Ascension Health, for $30 million in capital projects at three of St. John’s six hospitals in Southeast Michigan.
The biggest project will be at St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital, a two-campus hospital in Warren and Madison Heights. The Warren campus will spend $7.3 million to add 30 beds for observation patients and 16 beds for medical and surgical patients.
Other projects include:
• $3 million for Providence Park Hospital in Novi to buy a new open magnetic resonance imaging machine, the health system’s second open MRI. An open MRI allows patients more space during the procedure and avoids the usual cramped feeling of being confined inside a tube.
• $2 million for an outpatient center in Harrison Township, a previously announced project that will open in April. It will include an outpatient physical rehabilitation services program from North Shores Hospital, which will close. The outpatient center also will have lab services, physician offices and urgent-care services.
• $3 million to fund the recently opened Cracchiolo Inpatient Physical Rehabilitation Center at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit.
• $2.1 million for St. John Providence in Southfield to purchase a mobile positron emission tomography scanner. St. John currently leases a PET scanner, a nuclear-medicine device that allows physicians to view problems with organs and tissues.
Last week, Crain’s reported that Providence Hospital will spend $5 million to expand and improve operations at its crowded emergency department. The project includes a 4,055-square-foot expansion to add 16 acute-care treatment areas and nearly double the square footage of the department to almost 30,000 square feet.
The remaining funds earmarked by Ascension will be used for unspecified clinical programs, physician practices and other equipment.
