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New Carl R Darnall Army Medical Center in Fort Hood opened for patient care

New Carl R Darnall Army Medical Center in Fort Hood opened for patient care
Posted at 5:54 PM, Apr 03, 2016
and last updated 2016-04-03 19:00:32-04

It’s been five years in the making but Sunday morning Fort Hood Medical Center opened the doors to their new hospital, the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center.

The new hospital is 947,000 square feet which is 60 percent larger than the old building.

The new building’s emergency room opened at 7 a.m. Sunday morning and expanded from 30 beds to about 54 beds which increases their ability to care for more patients.

Colonel Mark Thompson said the layout is designed to help patients heal faster.

“There are two big things that make this better than our old facility one is just space, so patients have more space which is both an advantage to delivering healthcare to them, but also having that much space shows it improves how quickly they get out of the hospital” said Thompson.

The layout includes multiple healing gardens and a window in every room which has shown to help patients heal faster.

About 30 patients came over from the old hospital on Sunday morning and the first baby was born in the new facility around 8 a.m.

The official grand opening is a few weeks away.

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