La Crosse, WI (WXOW)-- The Gundersen Lutheran expansion is running on schedule. Workers plan to continue construction though the winter, and the project has now earned some international recognition.
"It's been fantastic looking at some of the workflow and some ideas that we can use and incorporate in the design of our hospital," said Dr. Kan Yuk Man, who is visiting from Singapore.
"I think the building has come up very fast," said Dr. Ivan Chan Boon Kwong, another physician visiting from Singapore. "A lot of the newest ideas, the latest ideas in space planning, the latest ideas in equipment, has all been put in here, the best things here."
Dr. Kwong and Dr. Man traveled from Singapore, where they are constructing two new hospitals. Friday, they met with the Gundersen construction project manager, Kevin Feyen, about ways to incorporate efficiency into their new facilities.
"Some of the things, we were in the patient rooms this morning, looking at how we laid out the patient rooms, the patient lifts," Feyen said. "And how we can take the patient from the bed, into the restroom on the lift."
"I think that is something we want to take back, how they planned the space, and how they planned for the future," Kwong said. "So that whatever they're planning now, building now, will be adequate for the future."
But the visiting doctors are taking away more than construction plans. They're also learning about new technologies at Gundersen.
"We showed them the new operating rooms, where the nurses will work in that space," Feyen said.
"We learned mainly two things: One is the space, the construction, but also the equipment, the training," Kwong said. "I understand Gundersen has just completed some wonderful new training facilities."
Dr. Man says, though the two countries are separated by thousands of miles and cultural differences, when it comes to medicine the process is very similar.
"I think worldwide, wherever you are, whether it's Timbuktu or anywhere else, it's the same issues," Man said. "Maybe some cultural differences, but its a lot of similarities between one established institutions to ours, which is newly formed."
The Gundersen project is scheduled to be completed by early 2014. The total cost of the expansion is still unknown, but the Gundersen's goal is to raise $70 million for the project.
