Change can often bring some misunderstandings, as Memorial Health is learning as it expands its brand in Richwood.
On Wednesday, the health system recently held an open house for its new facility at 19 W. Ottawa St. The facility will house the practices of Dr. David Dunkin and Dr. Pam Kapraly.
Kapraly had been operating a private practice from the location prior to being brought under Memorial’s umbrella. Memorial bought the building and completely renovated it.
But Memorial’s board of trustees learned at Thursday night’s meeting that with those renovations came a pair of minor problems.
According to Memorial CEO Chip Hubbs, when the work began it became apparent that the facility’s parking lot on the west side of the building had some long term tenants – vehicles which were rarely moved from the lot.
Because of this, signs were placed in the lot designating it to only be used by Memorial patients. This led to some phone calls, Hubbs said, because the lot had benefitted area stores and churches outside of businesses hours.
Hubbs noted that many times patients are ill or have mobility issues when visiting the doctors’ office and maintaining easy access to the building is important. However, he said, restricting the public from using the lot when the practice is closed was never the intention.
“Making sure patients have a safe and convenient place to park is always important,” Hubbs said in a written statement. “In posting signs indicating where our patients should park, we unintentionally inferred that others could not park there in the evenings and on weekends.
“That was never our intention, but in retrospect we see how the signage could make that confusing.
Hubbs said Memorial is currently creating new signs that add the wording, “during business hours.”
The second misunderstanding also involved the parking lot.
Hubbs said many years ago there was a sidewalk along one side of the lot, but the area is now paved over and included in the parking area. Unbeknownst to Memorial officials, those parking in the lot kept vehicles set back about four feet, to maintain a lane in the lot for pedestrians to travel.
When Memorial purchased the building, the lot was resurfaced and parking blocks were installed, but they were placed closer to the edge of the lot, eliminating the walking lane on the former location of the sidewalk.
Hubbs said crews will be moving the parking blocks back a few feet to return the walking lane.
“We apologize for creating any confusion,” Hubbs said in the statement. “Memorial is very proud to be an active part of the Richwood community and being good neighbors is important to us.”
In other business, the board:
–Learned that Memorial’s physician recruitment is going well and the system will soon announce the hiring of two new general surgeons.
–Approved the expenditure of $112,000 for licensing of Memorial’s Paragon 14.1 digital medical record system. The trustees also discussed investigating a move to another electronic record system called Epic.
–Heard an update on the Urbana facility work and Memorial’s 2020 fundraising campaign, which has raised more than $3 million so far.