CEO Update: Upgrading medical/surgical care in the hospital expansion

CEO Update Hospital Expansion
• 20 November 2025

Michael Calhoun shares the latest happenings at CMH in his monthly CEO Updates. He is the CEO/executive director of CMH and the Citizens Memorial Health Care Foundation.

Our new med/surg unit in the hospital expansion will have several significant changes. From all private rooms to new integrated technology, we’re improving the patient experience.

I recently visited with Cody Allison, medical/surgical nurse manager, and hospitalist Garrett Alderfer, M.D., about these improvements.

Continue reading the blog post or watch the video to learn more about:

• The medical/surgical unit
• Private patient rooms
• New integrated technology

About the medical/surgical unit

Alderfer: The medical/surgical floor has some of our lower acuity patients. They’re sick enough to need to be in the hospital, but at the same time, they’re not needing ICU level of care. These are patients with things like hip fractures or infections that are not requiring support from an ICU level of care. Those would be some of our more common things.

Others would be conditions like diabetes that aren’t requiring any constant infusions of insulin or derangements in metabolism issues like hyponatremia, or low sodium levels.

Calhoun: With the new hospital expansion and renovations that we’re doing, we’re going to get an all- new med/surg floor. It includes 28 all-private rooms. Tell me about what you’re most excited about with the new rooms.

Private patient rooms

Allison: I am super tickled about having all private rooms. I’ve worked here for a very long time, so I worked here when we had all semi-private rooms and every patient shared their space. We’re also getting 50 square feet more per room than what we have currently and fully ADA-accessible bathrooms. I’m excited about patients being able to wheel into the shower and take a shower or wheel up to the sink and wash their hands without having to have somebody help them reach things.

Alderfer: The first thing that comes to mind is privacy. Information is not necessarily being heard by everybody in a room, which is great. It also allows for a degree of privacy and healing. Sometimes, when you have semi-private rooms, noise is an issue because one patient needs attention when the other is trying to rest. Allowing for a more restful, restorative environment will help the patients in their healing processes.

Additionally, we’re going to be able to do telemetry, which is a form of cardiac monitoring, in every room on the new med/surg unit, which will elevate our level of care. We’ll be able to take sicker patients on med/surg than we currently do. Those patients will be able to get our same great level of CMH care, but we will be able to do that on the med/surg level.

Calhoun: When you have to be in a hospital bed, it’s really nice to be able to be by yourself with your family. I know that the staff are excited about that for the patients as well.

Allison: We’re also having bariatric rooms. That will be super helpful for nursing staff to provide really safe care to our bariatric patients. The rooms will have ceiling lifts, so we’re not hurting our backs. We can really get them moved and have a safe space for that.

New technology

Calhoun: What are you most excited about with the new technology and what it’s going to do for our patients?

Allison: New technology is something that will help us get back to the bedside. It sounds counterintuitive, but if we can document in real time in the room for our patients, and we’re not having to run back to the desk and do things, it helps us get back to the core of nursing, which is being with our patients and just having that connection that we all desire.

Calhoun: You really hit on something that maybe is a misconception. The increase in technology is certainly not to replace the human connection or human touch. It’s to free up people to spend more time face-to-face with patients and provide better care.

I am proud of the nurses and what a great job they do caring for the patients. I really feel like the new facility is going to better reflect the great care we already provide here at the hospital.

Allison: I 100% agree. It will be nice to be in a new, polished space so we can really highlight what nursing care does.

Alderfer: I’m very excited for the new building. I think it’s going to really be something for the community to be very proud of.