After four-and-a-half years of construction, Emanate Health Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina late last month finally opened its new $130 million building housing its expanded emergency and intensive care services.
The original emergency department was built in 1962 with a capacity to treat about 40,000 patients a year. But as the population of the eastern San Gabriel Valley grew over the ensuing decades, the demand for emergency services also increased and by this decade, the hospital was treating more than 80,000 emergency patients a year, leading to overcrowding and longer wait times for emergency patients.
The new two-story, 60,000-square-foot facility has a 60-bed emergency department on the first floor and a 24-bed intensive care unit on the second floor. The former emergency department had 26 beds, while the former ICU had 18 beds.
When the new emergency facility is fully operational, it will be able to treat 120,000 patients a year, three times the capacity of the old emergency department.
“This new facility represents a significant investment in our community and in our ability to provide timely, advanced emergency and critical care,” Roger Sharma, chief executive of Emanate Health, said in the opening announcement.
“We have built the infrastructure to take care of our aging community’s needs for years to come,” he added.
The expanded facility is designed to incorporate the latest medical technology, including computed tomography (CT) scan devices and MRI capabilities, X-ray and other imaging equipment. It will also have equipment and technology to support stroke diagnosis and treatment.
New York-based Turner Construction Co. was the lead construction contractor on the project, while Buffalo, New York-based CannonDesign was the lead project architect.
After years of planning and design and some delays brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the project broke ground in April 2022.
Besides the new medical facility, the campus expansion project also included another 60,000-square-foot medical pavilion and cancer center that opened in September 2023 as well as a four-story, 400-space parking structure.
