Construction crews work to expand the St. David’s Georgetown Hospital intensive care unit and emergency department. Construction crews work to expand the St. David’s Georgetown Hospital intensive care unit and emergency department.[/caption]

Changes are underway at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital that will allow the hospital to meet the growing number of patients, CEO Hugh Brown said.

Along with an expansion of the hospital’s intensive care unit, or ICU, that will more than double its size, the hospital is also adding five additional treatment areas for its emergency department and will replace its MRI machine with a newer model featuring a wider opening for patients.

Brown said the projects are anticipated to be completed in March.

“Our emergency department has continued to get busier and busier,” Brown said. “We have actually seen an uptick in ambulances since the Georgetown Fire Department took over [emergency medical services] on Oct. 1. We’re seeing more patients than we had seen in the same months of the prior year.”

Brown said the hospital reworked plans for an additional ICU waiting room on the hospital’s first floor to make room for the additional emergency department space.

“We recognize that while we were already growing because of the population growth and the reputation of the hospital, we should really take a deep breath and look at the construction that is ongoing, and we found we were able to squeeze in five additional [emergency department] treatment areas without disrupting anything,” he said. “All in all the timing couldn’t be better.”

Upon completion of the expansion, Brown said a project to remodel the emergency department would begin.

“We’re adding capacity with the expansion, and we’re going to continue to upgrade the department,” Brown said. “The emergency department will be new by the end of 2016.”

Hospital officials also anticipate opening a second driveway entrance to the hospital from the recently completed I-35 frontage road. The driveway is expected to be complete by the end of March, Brown said.

The new entrance is expected to improve traffic flow and ambulance response times at the hospital, he said.