Ribbon cutting ceremony

  • Published
  • By Merrie Schilter-Lowe
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The 60th Medical Group will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony Dec. 20 to celebrate the completion of a $13 million modernization project at the David Grant USAF Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base, California.

The 40,376 square-foot project was started in September 2014 and completed December 1.

 “The two major components of this project were to reconstruct the second floor Family Medicine Residency Clinic and construct a new Teddy’s Watch (day care center),” said Lewis Martin, Air Force Medical Support Agency health facilities project director. 

The ceremony will be held in the FMRC patient waiting area at 1:30 p.m., followed by a tour of the surgical center, post anesthesia care unit and endoscopy and cystoscopy suites.

DGMC was built in 1988.  Although the primary structure is in good condition, several departments needed renovations to accommodate the latest technologies, changing medical practices, staffing increases and mission changes.

Air Force Medical Services officials explained in the request for bids that DGMC’s antiquated layout forced the 60th MDG to bed down departments in areas not designed for those purposes.

For example, the FMRC outgrew its original space and was moved into a 1980s, design cobbled together from two separate clinics resulting in inefficiencies and a suboptimized training program.  

The redesigned clinic allows for the implementation of lean healthcare initiatives, streamlined patient care and space for the Behavioral Health Optimization Program’s psychologists, clinical social workers and psychiatric nurses.  Previously, the BHOP was located across the hall from the clinic.

The redesign project also included relocating the physicists’ office and support areas adjacent to the MRI department on the first floor and relocating the pathology offices and support functions outside the main core laboratory on the second floor. 

Additionally, the lab’s three existing pathology offices were converted to an open space in the core lab.  The laboratory also was expanded, providing lab technicians easy access to other areas in the laboratory.

DGMC provides medical care for more than 96,000 TRICARE beneficiaries and more than 388,000 Veteran’s Health Administration patients.