Fairview Southdale Prepares for September Groundbreaking of New Emergency Center

Fairview Southdale Hospital plans to break ground on a $42 million state-of-the-art emergency center this September and continues looking to the Edina community for financial support.

Dr. Stephen Battista, the chief cardiologist at Fairview Southdale, spoke to the Edina Rotary last week about the hospital’s need for improvements.

“Our emergency room is oversized and overcrowded and hasn’t gotten much bigger since I started there in 1992,” he said. “We have an aging facility, and it needs to be refurbished and expanded.”

Fairview Southdale is a state leader in treatment of heart attacks, strokes and pulmonary embolism and, by one measure, had the highest survival rate in the nation of cardiac arrest.

“That’s pretty good for the little engine down the street,” Battista said.

But hospital officials say the emergency department has been largely unchanged since the hospital was founded in 1965. Designed for 30,000 visits a year, it had nearly 43,000 in 2012.

The project has so far raised $9 million in donations toward its $15 million public fundraising goal.

The expanded department will be 2.5 times bigger than the existing facility. The number of rooms will increase from 30 to 43. It will have a new rooftop helipad, larger specially equipped spaces for trauma and heart emergencies and a new observation space to monitor patients who need further care but do not need to be admitted.

It will be named the Carl N. Platou Emergency Center, after the former Fairview president. It is currently slated to open in July 2015, in time for the hospital’s 50th anniversary.

The project has so far raised $9 million in donations toward the $15 million goal. Those who want to make a donation can go here to find out more about the different ways to give. Fairview is also asking people to share their stories about a visit they had to Fairview.