'How vulnerable we are': Essentia adding even more ICU beds to new Duluth hospital

DULUTH - Essentia Health will add 32 ICU beds to its $900 million Vision Northland hospital project, a 10% increase in patient rooms.

Essentia leaders initially intended to leave one of 10 inpatient floors empty, anticipating a changing health care landscape and allowing for flexibility as new needs arise. But the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic forced a change of direction.

The pandemic "has illustrated to us how vulnerable we are as a society," said Dr. Jon Pryor, president of the health system's eastern region. "There has been a general shortage of staffed ICU beds across the country, and by doing this now it ensures that we'll be better prepared to meet those needs."

Delayed care, both routine and preventive, has led to an increase in disease, strokes and other medical events that require higher levels of care, Pryor said, as more patients stayed home during the pandemic.

The new hospital, expected to be fully constructed in about a year, will now offer 342 patient rooms, nearly all for single occupancy. Of those, 96 will be considered ICU-capable beds, meaning a typical patient room can be converted quickly to one able to handle intensive care, more than doubling the number available at the current St. Mary's Medical Center.

Build-out of the floor raises the project cost to $915 million. Because Vision Northland is financed by bonds, the addition is considered a separate project funding-wise. Essentia will pay for it through a combination of revenue and fundraising. It's more cost-effective to add the hospital rooms now, leaders said.

"We are taking advantage of construction being underway already instead of waiting and remodeling later," Dan Cebelinski,Essentia's director of facilities, said in a news release. "This will result in less disruption to the day-to-day flow in a busy hospital and provide a more peaceful atmosphere for our patients."

The expansion isn't expected to delay the opening, with construction projected to finish in the first quarter of 2023 and operations beginning in the second half of that year. The current hospital will be demolished once the new one is operating.

Essentia facilities, which employ about 14,000, include 14 hospitals and 71 clinics across Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota. Aside from the downtown Duluth project, considered the largest private investment to date in the city of nearly 90,000, Essentia has expanded to the city's Miller Hill Mall area in recent years. Outpatient therapy, occupational medicine and its fitness center moved to the mall in 2020, and an outpatient surgery center at the mall's former Sears store is expected to open this year. An orthopedic urgent care opened in 2019.