Altoona Regional Health System plans to award contracts next month for an $18 million renovation of the former Altoona Center, system Chief Operating Officer Ron McConnell said.

The project is a critical piece of the $50 million consolidation of acute care at Howard Avenue, which includes closing the Bon Secours Hospital Campus in fall 2010 and consolidation of many outpatient services at Station Medical Center.

The Blair County Planning Commission endorsed the land development plan for the center project last week. The hospital expects to begin construction on the project by January and finish by November 2010.

The renovation will fully incorporate the four-story Altoona Center building at Howard Avenue and Fourth Street into the hospital's main campus next door.

A 450-foot-long crossover bridge will connect the center with the E building that fronts Fairview Cemetery on Willow Avenue.

The behavioral health department will predominate at the new location.

Wound care will go from Bon Secours and a few locations on the main campus to the first floor of the new center.

The hospital's data equipment and information technology staff will move from the main campus to the second floor of the center.

Workers will create new meetings rooms to make up for space lost on the main campus because of the overall consolidation.

The first floor of the center already includes a print shop and will include rooms for storage and staff training, Blair County Assistant Planning Director Craig Soyster said.

The bridge is critical to avoid having to establish a new hospital "entity" at the center, Soyster said. That would create billing and accreditation problems, McConnell said.

The bridge will allow for easy movement of patients, employees and materials between the center and the rest of the campus buildings, McConnell said.

Departments like lab, dietary and phlebotomy will use it continually, he said.

If not for the bridge, the hospital would need to send psychiatric patients who come to the emergency room by ambulance to be admitted, McConnell said.

The bridge will connect the third floor of the seven-story E building with the fourth or top floor of the Altoona Center building. The passage will be fully enclosed, with heating and cooling.

It will be wide enough for two patient litters to pass one another, hospital spokesman Dave Cuzzolina said. The crossover will span the distance between buildings with the help of piers.

Altoona Regional took possession of the Altoona Center building several weeks ago, after leasing-to-buy for three years from the state Department of General Services.

The purchase price was $250,000, set by the state at the time of the lease-purchase agreement.

The Altoona Center for the mentally handicapped closed in 2006. Most of its 90 residents went to a sister facility in Ebensburg or to community homes.

Altoona Regional also is finishing design for consolidation of emergency services at the main campus.

The project will expand the department from 28 to about 52 bays, eliminating the 10 bays at Bon Secours.

The hospital hopes the project will expedite service to levels that are better than the national averages.

The hospital already is close to the national benchmarks of 30 to 45 minutes for reaching a doctor, McConnell said.

More bays will help get patients out of the waiting room faster. Bedside registration and triage using laptop computers will get patients ready more quickly to see the doctor.

The emergency room will expand into an area of the first floor vacated by the move of radiology services to Station Medical Center and the outpatient center on Howard Avenue, McConnell said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.