President of Trinity Health System St. Clairsville Hospital Dwayne Richardson shows the surgery prep room, which will prepare people for operations at the new facility that will have five surgical areas, including general, eye, nose and throat, gynecology, urology and orthopedic.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Trinity Health System St. Clairsville Hospital is still on track to open in July, providing the local community with not only basic care, but emergency care as well.

Dwayne Richardson, president of the hospital, toured the new facility along with others Wednesday. It is in its final stages of construction and expected to be ready to open by the targeted date of July 21. Still, Richardson said he is always evaluating the “what ifs?”

The hospital will be a 20,000-square-foot acute care service facility with two stories and 10 emergency rooms, two of which will be trauma rooms along with three fast track rooms on the second floor, six inpatient rooms including one intensive care room and two operating rooms.

Other departments will also be in the hospital, ranging from laboratory services to high-end imaging services.

It will also have a room geared toward bariatric patients and another room dedicated to behavioral health patients within an emergency room.

It will provide basic hospital facility services, but also emergency care, which can be difficult to receive right now in the St. Clairsville area, according to Richardson. Patients typically have to cross the Ohio River to obtain it, so providing access on National Road in St. Clairsville will give more people access to health care quickly.

The gap the new facility will help fill was created when East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry closed in March, leaving WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital in Wheeling as the closest care facility for many St. Clairsville area residents.

WVU Medicine Barnesville Hospital continues to serve patients in western Belmont County.

The new St. Clairsville hospital will have a helicopter landing zone adjacent to the ambulance bay. It will have a walkway and pathway for the gurney itself to come inside the hospital, and that will be a way of expediting a patient’s care and transferring them, instead of moving them from the hospital to an off-site location for loading or unloading from a medical helicopter. Richardson said the hospital is trying to eliminate that waste of time and expedite patient care.

Some emergency patients who could come in via helicopter could be suffering heart attacks, trauma, strokes and more.

The hospital has partnered with helicopter firms such as STAT Medivac, UPMC, Wexner and The Ohio State University.

There will be natural light in each of the emergency and exam rooms, and this is because Trinity Health System had the vision of the patient in mind.

“Because remember, a lot of our patients aren’t necessarily standing up. They’re actually laying down and looking at the ceiling, and when you’re looking up at the ceiling, we take that all into account and try to put our patients’ viewpoints into it to make it a priority.”

The hospital will have 60 full-time equivalent employees, which will include nurses, doctors, radiologists and more.

As soon as someone walks into the hospital, a trauma room will be there for patients who were just involved in an ATV rollover, car accident or other emergencies. Not only is it a trauma room, but it is also a resuscitation room for those suffering problems such as a heart attack or stroke.

Two waiting room areas will be ready for people when the hospital opens. In the second-floor waiting room, Richardson showed that half will be for “healthy” patients and half will be for “sick” patients to keep them separated.

The hospital will have five surgical centers, including areas for general, orthopedic, ear, nose and throat, gynecology and urology surgeries.

The hospital is using recycled plastic water bottles for some of its flooring, which appears to be carpet but is actually made from environmentally friendly materials.

It is also one of the first facilities in the Ohio Valley using artificial intelligence for its CAT scan equipment.

The hospital will also have blood on site if a patient needs it.

There will be no visiting hours because the facility will be open at all hours.

A decontamination room, accessible from the outside, is included in the hospital for cleaning off patients or staff who may have been exposed to malaria, other dangerous diseases, chemicals, gasoline and even bed bugs.

Richardson described the facility as a micro hospital.

He said the hospital is connecting with local Catholic priests and ministers of other denominations to serve patients.

“I want to make sure that our mission, our vision and our values are held within this actual organization in itself,” he said.

The average length of stay for a patient is anticipated to be two to three days, depending on circumstances.

There will also be robots throughout the hospital, providing telemedicine services.

The closure of East Ohio Regional Hospital brought a lot of uncertainty, Richardson said. As a result, the volume of patients at the new St. Clairsville facility is anticipated to increase beyond projections that were available when construction began, so it may have to adjust from a staffing point. Richardson added that Trinity Health System can’t make the hospital bigger, but it can be ready to adjust accordingly to meet patients’ needs.

Richardson said there is a need in the community of St. Clairsville for a local hospital facility.

“Through a community health needs assessment, we determined that there was additional medical care that was needed down here,” Richardson said. “However, we also determined then that a facility was needed to support those other sites. … We’re just happy to be here, and we’re happy that we can bless this community, and we’re happy that our biggest thing is serving the community.”