Forney residents currently driving to Mesquite, Dallas and Rockwall for their medical needs will soon have a hometown hospital right here in Forney to serve their needs, at the intersection of FM-548 & Rogers Parkway. Indeed, Cirrus Health officials expect the Forney Regional Medical Center to attract patients from throughout East Texas.

In a groundbreaking ceremony today attended by local and state dignitaries such as Forney Mayor Darrell Grooms, much of the Forney City Council and the Forney Economic Development Corporation and State Representative Betty Brown (as well as Forney local, Wade Gent, who is challenging Brown in the Republican Primary), Cirrus Health unveiled the floor plan and a virtual tour of the facility. In addition, in a moving ceremony, Cirrus Health announced that the ‘House Call’ playground that will be located on the hospital’s property is being dedicated to and named after Dr. Christine Walker who, until her retirement in May of 2007, practiced medicine in Forney for a number of decades and delivered approximately 500 Forney babies!

The 102,000 square foot hospital will include an emergency room, an obstetric unit with four labor and delivery rooms, two procedure rooms, four operating rooms, a heart cath lab and an initial capacity of 40 beds. Dr. Ira Korman, Senior Vice President of Cirrus Health, assured attendees of the groundbreaking ceremony that the virtual tour was an accurate representation of what the finished hospital will look like, right down to the sofas, chairs and beds. For more about the groundbreaking and this beautiful facility, and information on how to view the virtual tour yourself, click ‘Read On’, below…

The two-story hospital and nearby medical office building features a significant amount of stonework and beautiful architecture. The lobby area, home to a hotel-style check-in and information desk, is designed in warm earth tones and has ample (not to mention comfortable looking!) seating designed to accommodate everything from individuals to large families. The lobby also features a separate play area for children and is near the hospital’s dining room.

All of the rooms in the hospital appear be private rooms, located on the facility’s second floor. Each room features a spacious bed (I didn’t get a chance to confirm this, but at least in the virtual tour, the beds seemed larger than the average hospital bed), a sleeper sofa that converts into a bed and the latest amenities, including flat-screen TV’s, which are featured throughout the facility. The hospital will also feature building-wide wireless Internet access, allowing visitors and patients to access the Internet from the laptop and stay in touch with friends and family, as well as work, while they are at the hospital.

The labor and delivery rooms were featured quite a bit in the virtual tour, and are impressive - the rooms convert from a patient room to a labor and delivery room as well as a recovery room and back, and are setup with ample space to allow for what the hospital called a ‘family oriented birthing process’. The nursery is located central to the four labor and delivery rooms, allowing family and friends to easily visit with the mother and the baby.

The hospital’s layout also dedicates a significant amount of space to a complete imaging facility, providing any of the diagnostic imaging facilities a doctor might need.

Beyond the extraordinary level of care Forney Regional Medical Center will provide for residents of Forney and the surrounding area, city officials are also excited because the hospital could create up to 150 jobs in Forney, many of which will obviously be in specialized medical and high-tech fields, creating jobs for Forney students who pursue degrees in medicine and related fields, allowing them to return home to Forney after the complete their education.

Now that it has been officially unveiled at the groundbreaking ceremony, Cirrus Health is working to place the virtual tour online on their website, at this link. The virtual tour is not yet online at the time I’m finishing this post, however, the tour was unveiled just a few hours ago, and will no doubt be available online shortly.

Cirrus plans to open the facility in the Fall of 2009, and already a number of doctors have expressed an interest in the hospital and the adjacent medical office building. Cirrus is unique in their approach, as they partner with local doctors who have become investors and partners in the hospital and work with Cirrus to ensure the facility provides excellent, personal medical care.

Click to visit this thread in the Forney discussion forum to discuss the new Forney Regional Medical Center.

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