OSF St. Joseph held a blessing for its new surgical waiting area (pictured above) and administrative offices Wednesday afternoon. (Adam Studzinski/WJBC)

By Adam Studzinski

BLOOMINGTON – New administrative offices and a new surgical waiting area are officially open at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center.

The hospital on Wednesday held a blessing for the areas. President Chad Boore said the location of the new, larger waiting area is especially important as OSF prepares to install a hybrid operating room.

"Right across the hallway is where that new operating room is going to go," said Boore. "From a patient experience, a family experience stand point, this new waiting room space allows the families to be much closer to where their loved ones are. It's an easy entrance right into the building as well."

Boore said the waiting room and administrative offices had to be moved to make space for the new operating area, which will be the first of its kind in Bloomington-Normal.

"The hybrid OR is an integrated operating room which allows our cardiovascular interventionists to see a patient, scan them from head to toe, but it's done in the operating room setting," Director of surgical services Ashley Neal explained.

Neal added this project is creating more space for surgical services.

"It's going to double the space of our recovery room and our pre-operative holding area," said Neal. "And allow us to have a very large hybrid OR – about 1,200 feet."

Boore said this will be a "game changer" for the hospital.

"It certainly is going to be revolutionary. Again, it doesn't exist anywhere else in the immediate area, so I think it'll help patients stay in town for certain work that they maybe had to travel out of town for," said Boore. "Most people want to get health care in their backyard and the more of that we can provide appropriately then really the better off."

The total project will cost about $12 million. Boore expected it to be complete in roughly 18 months.

Adam Studzinski can be reached at [email protected].