POWELL, Tenn. — Knoxville, Knox County, and Tennova Healthcare leaders gathered Thursday afternoon for the grand opening of a new multimillion-dollar patient tower and emergency room.
Tennova North Knoxville Medical has a new 98,000-square-foot tower with a price tag of $67.5 million. It took around two years to build it. The new tower is four stories tall, and the first floor houses an expanded emergency room. The second floor and third floor have 28 acute hospital beds and 28 intensive care unit beds.
Leaders are still working to decide on what the fourth floor will have.
“The fourth floor is going to allow us to meet the needs of the community going forward,” says Bill Rich, CEO of Tennova North Knoxville Medical Center. “We could add more patient beds, surgery, a larger OBGYN department.”
Along with the increase in beds for patients, leaders said the medical facility would hire around 125 more people after the expansion.
The tower also has dedicated EMSA rooms in the ER. Rich said ambulances can bring the patients, drop them off in the designated area, and then get back on the road.
Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs said that will help alleviate some of the issues the county is facing about its supply of ambulances.
“Part of the underlying issue was wait time at hospitals,” he said. “It’s a systemic issue that everyone in the county deals with. But, having this addition is going to help with that and expanding the emergency room should really help mitigate that particular issue.”