Slide Show: Countdown to Belvoir’s New Hospital

Ft. Belvoir, Va. –– There’s an air of excitement around Ft. Belvoir as its new hospital inches closer to the date it will accept the first patient.

The massive $1 billion Fort Belvoir Community Hospital is slated to open August 10. It will replace DeWitt Community Hospital.

The new hospital will boast 120 beds with 10 operating rooms that will be able to treat more than 37,000 patients per year. It will be staffed with more than 1,600 employees; all whom will help make it one of the newest, most cutting-edge medical facilities.

“There’s never been a hospital that’s been built like this before, not in the Army and nowhere else in the nation,” said U.S. Army Col. B. Allan Shoupe, M.D.

The facility broke ground in 2007, and since then crews have been working diligently to meet the government-imposed BRAC deadline of September 2011. That’s when many military basses will be realigned or closed, shifting some 20,000 people to Ft. Belvoir.

The hospital has been built with a design, bid, build approach, said Shoupe. Many of the plans for the hospital weren’t even finalized when the overall construction began.

This construction approach led to what medical professionals believe will promote a better hospital experience, including open access hallways, natural light that beams through large windows throughout the building, colorful murals on walls, and large recovery rooms with space for family members to sit bedside with a loved one on the mend.

“People just heal better when they have family members by their side. If mom wants her hand held while she’s staying in the room, a family member will be able to be at her side to help, and they deserve to stay here,” said Shoupe.

The hospital is laid out in five sections, or pavilions, most of which have two floors. The main section of the hospital, at the center of the structure, has seven floors.

In addition to emergency and primary care, the center will offer 55 specialties, including cancer treatment, cardiac catheterization and treating soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The hospital will also have doctors, nurses and patients communicating in new ways.

Through “Smart Suite” technology, doctors will be able to check a monitor on the wall outside a patient’s room to see basic medical information about a patient, as well as access medical history and X-rays prior to walking into the room. The technology will also allow the patient to easily identify at any time which member of the medical treatment staff is in the room, said Shoupe.