Doctors Hospital unveiled the Fred Mullins, M.D. Tower at the Joseph M Still Burn Center Feb 23.
Officially opened Feb. 24, the Burn Center tower raises the number of available Intensive Care beds from 18 to 38. Overall, the number of available rooms increased from 79 to 99 with 28 new rooms on the second floor.
The state-of-the-art facility features two helipads and an outdoor seating area for patients and their families. The new design allows burn victims to be separated from the rest of the hospital’s inpatient population. It is modeled for convenient transition as patients go from surgery to recovery to ICU rooms, said Jane Echols, vice president of Burn Services.
“Everything allows for the flow of patients and the flow of patients over very short distances,” Chief Medical Officer Shawn Fagan said.
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Updated technology in the nursing station allows staff to continuously monitor patients’ well-being.
“Everything that displays on the bedside, displays on a central monitor out here,” Echols said during a tour of the new facility.
Emergency rooms are three times the size of the previous spaces. ICU rooms, designed for maximum sanitation, are larger and set up for temperature control. Each room contains a full bathroom. Artwork depicting local scenery hangs on the walls.
Much thought went into the comfort of both the patients and the burn center’s medical staff. Ambulance drivers, known to travel for up to 10 hours transporting burn victims to the center, have a room to decompress, eat and complete paperwork.
Jane Echols, Vice President of Burn Services stands in front of an ICU room. Photo credit: Shellie Smitley 
Updated technology in the nursing station allows staff to continuously monitor patients’ well-being. Staff photo by Shellie Smitley. The state-of-the-art facility features an outdoor seating area for patients and their families. Photo credit: Shellie Smitley 
The new burn center addition includes a private workspace area in addition to a separate workroom for physicians and mid-levels to document and dictate outside the patients’ rooms. Photo credit: Shellie Smitley
“I know this seems trivial in the grand scheme of things, but we are very proud of this, too,” Echols said of a private workspace area in addition to a separate workroom. “We have given our physicians and our mid-levels a place to work and document and dictate that is outside the noise and the hustle-bustle inside the rooms, so once they are done with their evaluations, they have a place to come.”
The Joseph M Still Burn Center is the largest burn center in the United States and provides complex and comprehensive burn and wound care for more than 3,000 patients from across the country each year. The tower is a $75 million project that took nearly two years to complete and is the most significant investment since the center was built in 1973.
“We took 40 years of knowledge and planning and put it into this building,” Director of Communications Jason Smith said.
Shellie Smitley is a staff writer for The Augusta Press. Reach her at shellie@theaugustapress.com
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