As American Fork grows, so do its hospital services.
The newly remodeled Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the American Fork Hospital allows staff to provide more up-to-date care, said Gaylene Anderton, administrative director of the hospital's critical care unit."We have been working on the remodeling for almost a year," she said. And the new area is now more enclosed so the patients can receive more and better care.
Anderton, who is from Lehi and has been working at American Fork Hospital for 20 years, said the response to the new unit, which was finished around the second week of July, has been very good.
"Both staff and doctors feel great about the services we are now able to offer," she said.
The remodeling began last year with the purchase of an arrythmia monitoring system, which allows the medical staff to monitor a patient's status via computer.
The system will also help to identify irregularities in the patient's progress, Anderton said.
The new system will allow the medical staff to check on the status of any patient from one computer without having to go to the person's room.
"We also expanded the area we use to three rooms," she said. These rooms will have telemetry units for patients who need special cardiac monitoring.
Anderton said it is important to have these cardiac patients separate from other critical patients and the expansion will allow that.
At other times, the ICU has had patients who didn't really need to be there, Anderton said. "The ICU is not an ideal environment for those kinds of patients."
The remodeling will allow the staff to focus on those patients who really need the help.
Anderton and Nancy Dastrup, a registered nurse at the hospital, also helped to redecorate the ICU.
"It is much more aesthetic," Anderton said. The new colors were recommended by gerontological specialists because they are more pleasing to elderly patients.
The whole area is better organized now, she said. And with an increased staff over the past year, the ICU is able to give better service.
The first intensive care unit in American Fork opened in 1968.
Because of its growth, American Fork Hospital is able to handle almost every type of medical problem.
"The only thing we don't have is a resident neurologist," Anderton said. Patients with neurological problems are sent to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center or to Salt Lake City.