Yes.  We are planning an October 25^th community celebration of our new spaces made possible through NMC’s Master Facility Plan and our community’s generosity through our Exceptional Campaign.  You will have the opportunity to see many of our new spaces and join in recognizing the wonderful donations which supported these enhancements to our healing environment.

A number of our new areas are already in service.  The new Main Lobby with centralized registration has drawn frequent praise for accessibility and efficiency.  The first portion of the new private rooms on the Progress Care Unit for our inpatients is providing the privacy, restfulness, and loved-one support that we had envisioned – and patients and families are so pleased with these rooms. The Medical Clinics addition is open, hosting Northwestern Cardiology, Northwestern Pulmonology, and Northwestern Women’s Services – OB/GYN while providing additional space for “coming soon” specialty clinics which we are working on with our partners at the University of Vermont Health Network.  At our celebration, you will be able to see a video tour of the Progressive Care Unit (to preserve patient privacy, we are limiting tours of that area) and you will be able to tour our new lobby and the Medical Clinics addition.  You will also be able to tour the new Medical Office Building – before it opens!  This two-story addition at the front of campus will provide expanded, flexible, efficient space on the first floor for Northwestern Primary Care, Northwestern Urgent Care, and Northwestern Orthopaedics. If you are wondering, the second floor of that building is shell space to allow for efficient future expansion to keep pace with community need with minimal disruption and cost.  The Medical Office Building will go into service a few weeks after the October 25^th celebration, so it will be available for tours!

The public events on October 25 will begin at 2pm with a formal ceremony – highlighted by remarks from Governor Phil Scott who will be joining us — celebrating the projects and thanking the many community members who have supported our master facility plan. That will be held in the Medical Office Building’s lobby and there will be opportunities to see the other spaces as well.  If you are available to join us at 2pm to hear the Governor and our other speakers, that would be great. Later that day, for those for whom it is challenging to get away during the day, we will host an Open House from 5:30 – 7:00 pm.  This will be a less formal event focused on allowing people to see our new spaces.  Both events are open to the public: however, we encourage RSVP’s, to ensure proper seating and refreshments, by calling NMC’s Development Office at 524-8467.

Thanks to the support of our community and the patience of our patients, visitors, and neighbors, the NMC team and the construction crews have successfully accomplished an incredible undertaking in transforming our campus, while still providing exceptional care to our community.  The result is greater access to exceptional care through more efficient and flexible modern facilities. NMC is truly a community hospital and that is quite evident in the support provided for this work to shape our campus to facilitate a healthier future. We are especially grateful for our community’s belief in our vision and the resulting investments in our future. This support has been led by Peerless Clothing who pledged $500,000; the Northwestern Medical Center Auxiliary who pledged $120,000; and the Garibay Family who pledged $100,000 along with two significant anonymous gifts and an estate provision.  We are excited to host the events on October 25 to share our final results of “Exceptional… the Campaign for Northwestern Medical Center” and thank the nearly 500 individuals and businesses that gave of their time and money to make this progress possible.

Please plan to join us on October 25 to celebrate an exceptional future (and remember to RSVP to NMC’s Development Office at 524-8467). This is a historic step forward for the healing environment in our community and we are anxious to share this moment with you.

— Jill Berry Bowen, NMC’s Chief Executive Officer