As Donnie Frederic strolls through a quiet corridor of the new four-story patient tower at Louisiana Medical Center & Heart Hospital in Lacombe, he stops to adjust a picture.

Art has just been hung on the freshly painted walls of the facility, which is nearing completion of a $40 million expansion that began in June 2007. Frederic, the hospital’s president and CEO, said the new 109,000 square-foot structure represents a significant investment to serve the health care needs of the community.

“Opening day, we’ll have equipped and staffed 39 patient rooms, plus we’ll have an additional 40 rooms on the third floor that we plan to put into service to keep up with community need,” said Frederic. “When we outgrow even those additional rooms, we’ll equip and open the remaining rooms on the fourth floor.”

This artist's rendering of the hospital exterior shows the new four-story patient tower. The addition will also house an expanded emergency department, additional operating rooms, and upgraded radiology facilities. (Image Courtesy Louisiana Medical Center & Heart Hospital)

The facility initially opened with 58 rooms in 2003 to specialize in cardiac and spinal care, but since Hurricane Katrina, it has evolved into a general, acute care hospital, having added services in gastroenterology and neurology as well. The new building will eventually offer 119 all-private rooms, each outfitted with Wi-Fi technology so patients can stay connected to the Internet.

It will also increase the number of emergency room beds from 10 to 20, making it the largest in St. Tammany Parish.

“Hospitals on the Northshore have been feeling the pinch in terms of ER space since Hurricane Katrina,” said Medical Director of Emergency Services Dr. Lloyd Gueringer. “This expansion should help alleviate some of that squeeze, and also allow us to be positioned for future growth.”

In addition, the hospital was recently awarded full Cycle II accreditation status as a Chest Pain Center from the Accreditation Review Committee of the Society of Chest Pain Centers. It is the only facility on the Northshore to receive the recognition, meaning they met or exceeded quality-of-care measures in acute cardiac medicine.

According to Frederic, the certification means heart patients can receive accurate and effective treatment much more quickly.

“Every minute of a heart attack means lost heart muscle,” he said. “It becomes that much harder to recover and get back to normal activities.”

Further honors came earlier this year when the Thomson Reuters Benchmarks for Success study named the hospital as one of the nation’s 100 top hospitals for cardiovascular care. The tower will also hold three new operating rooms, along with larger examination rooms. Each one is set up exactly the same, so nurses moving from room to room will not need to spend precious time searching for supplies. It will also expand the hospital’s radiology facilities, including equipment located specifically to speed diagnosis and treatment of ER patients.

An adjacent medical office building is available for leasing, and the hospital also expects to upgrade its entire MRI unit with new technology in the next three to four months.

For more information about LMCHH, its services and physicians, call 690-7500.