New Cox Monett Hospital opens January 22
A drone’s-eye view, above, shows the new $42 million, 100,000 square foot Cox Monett Hospital located at 1000 E. Highway 60 in Monett. The project was completed a bit ahead of schedule, less than two years after the May 1, 2019, ground-breaking. The new hospital will replace Cox Monett’s previous facility at 801 N. Lincoln, located in a residential neighborhood in Monett.
January 20, 2021
Sheila Harris
Darren Bass, president of Cox Monett Hospital, used the word surreal more than once when describing his feelings about the completion and pending opening of the new hospital this Friday, January 22.
“It’s hard to believe we’re at this point,” he said. “Hopefully I don’t wake up and discover it’s a dream.”
Tuesday, Bass conducted a tour of the new facility, pointing out the new hospital’s features which will streamline and add efficiency to the medical services they can provide.
“Our old hospital served its purpose,” Bass said, “but it was built in 1953 with the needs for that decade in mind.”
With the new hospital, one key expansion of service is the addition of two orthopedic surgeons to the CoxHealth staff.
“We will now be able to offer full joint surgery in Monett, something people have had to travel to larger cities for in the past,” Bass said.
Bass said the new hospital will actually have less square footage than the old building, but it has been designed for increased efficiency, with many suggestions from healthcare providers taken into consideration with the design. One example Bass pointed to was an in-house radiology suite, including MRI and enhanced CT and mammography capabilities.
“Previously,” Bass said, “we would have to ask patients to leave the hospital and go outside to a portable structure where our MRI machine was located.”
Bass said, too, that in the new hospital the CT scanner is situated near the emergency room, since it’s often used in conjunction with emergencies.
The new, secure Labor and Delivery department, now called “Labor, Delivery, Recovery and Post-Partum (LDRP),” is Dr. Elizabeth Lucore’s second home, although she jokingly calls it her first one.
The department, with seven private rooms, has been renamed because activity connected with childbirth will now all take place in one room.
“If all goes according to plan, the baby will never have to leave mama’s sight,” Lucore said.
Lucore is especially excited about a new feature in the LDRP rooms which she has never seen in any other hospital.
“We now have bathing sinks for newborns in the same room where the baby is delivered,” Lucore said. “Mama can watch the whole process right from her bed.”
In addition to the seven LDRP beds, 18 beds serve medical/surgical patients. Four are located in critical care rooms.
Because COVID-19 is now a concern, in ten of the existing rooms, air flow can be converted to negative pressure, allowing air to be vented upward and outward.
Another feature Bass is excited about is the helipad located on the front lawn.
“This will be a huge improvement over calling in local fire and police department personnel to spot check every time we have a helicopter land and take off,” he said. “Plus, we don’t have to worry about the noise of a helicopter disrupting a neighbor’s sleep out here.”
Bass did add that sound-proofing techniques were used on the exterior walls of the hospital for patients’ sleep needs.
For patients of the CoxHealth system, the new hospital will also mean a change of address for Monett’s family practice clinics.
“We are consolidating three previous clinic locations into one large clinic in the new hospital,” Kaley Thigpen, clinic administrator, said. “We will now have 27,000 square feet of clinic space which will house 14 healthcare providers.”
For the time being, Cox Monett will retain its status as a “Critical Access” hospital, which means, according to government regulation, it must limit its in-patient capacity to 25 beds.
“The critical access status has served us well,” Darren Bass said, “so we plan to continue with it for the foreseeable future.”
Bass said there are two factors at play in the construction of a new hospital in Monett.
“We couldn’t do it without the backing of CoxHealth,” Bass said. “If we were a stand-alone hospital, this type of project would have been impossible.
“Nor could we have built this hospital without the support of the community,” he added. “They’ve supported us, not only with their enthusiasm, but also with approximately $7 million in donations through the Cox Monett Momentum Campaign. We’re truly a community hospital.”
Sheila Harris
Darren Bass, president of Cox Monett Hospital, used the word surreal more than once when describing his feelings about the completion and pending opening of the new hospital this Friday, January 22.
“It’s hard to believe we’re at this point,” he said. “Hopefully I don’t wake up and discover it’s a dream.”
Tuesday, Bass conducted a tour of the new facility, pointing out the new hospital’s features which will streamline and add efficiency to the medical services they can provide.
“Our old hospital served its purpose,” Bass said, “but it was built in 1953 with the needs for that decade in mind.”
With the new hospital, one key expansion of service is the addition of two orthopedic surgeons to the CoxHealth staff.
“We will now be able to offer full joint surgery in Monett, something people have had to travel to larger cities for in the past,” Bass said.
Bass said the new hospital will actually have less square footage than the old building, but it has been designed for increased efficiency, with many suggestions from healthcare providers taken into consideration with the design. One example Bass pointed to was an in-house radiology suite, including MRI and enhanced CT and mammography capabilities.
“Previously,” Bass said, “we would have to ask patients to leave the hospital and go outside to a portable structure where our MRI machine was located.”
Bass said, too, that in the new hospital the CT scanner is situated near the emergency room, since it’s often used in conjunction with emergencies.
The new, secure Labor and Delivery department, now called “Labor, Delivery, Recovery and Post-Partum (LDRP),” is Dr. Elizabeth Lucore’s second home, although she jokingly calls it her first one.
The department, with seven private rooms, has been renamed because activity connected with childbirth will now all take place in one room.
“If all goes according to plan, the baby will never have to leave mama’s sight,” Lucore said.
Lucore is especially excited about a new feature in the LDRP rooms which she has never seen in any other hospital.
“We now have bathing sinks for newborns in the same room where the baby is delivered,” Lucore said. “Mama can watch the whole process right from her bed.”
In addition to the seven LDRP beds, 18 beds serve medical/surgical patients. Four are located in critical care rooms.
Because COVID-19 is now a concern, in ten of the existing rooms, air flow can be converted to negative pressure, allowing air to be vented upward and outward.
Another feature Bass is excited about is the helipad located on the front lawn.
“This will be a huge improvement over calling in local fire and police department personnel to spot check every time we have a helicopter land and take off,” he said. “Plus, we don’t have to worry about the noise of a helicopter disrupting a neighbor’s sleep out here.”
Bass did add that sound-proofing techniques were used on the exterior walls of the hospital for patients’ sleep needs.
For patients of the CoxHealth system, the new hospital will also mean a change of address for Monett’s family practice clinics.
“We are consolidating three previous clinic locations into one large clinic in the new hospital,” Kaley Thigpen, clinic administrator, said. “We will now have 27,000 square feet of clinic space which will house 14 healthcare providers.”
For the time being, Cox Monett will retain its status as a “Critical Access” hospital, which means, according to government regulation, it must limit its in-patient capacity to 25 beds.
“The critical access status has served us well,” Darren Bass said, “so we plan to continue with it for the foreseeable future.”
Bass said there are two factors at play in the construction of a new hospital in Monett.
“We couldn’t do it without the backing of CoxHealth,” Bass said. “If we were a stand-alone hospital, this type of project would have been impossible.
“Nor could we have built this hospital without the support of the community,” he added. “They’ve supported us, not only with their enthusiasm, but also with approximately $7 million in donations through the Cox Monett Momentum Campaign. We’re truly a community hospital.”