Article courtesy of: THE DAILY LEADER

Not having the right look is bad for business.

King's Daughters Medical Center has always had the staff, the skills and the tools to deliver babies, but not having the right looks has caused plenty of mothers to forego Brookhaven and travel to Jackson to give birth. Now, with the hospital's LDRP (Labor, Delivery, Recovery, Postpartum) department fully renovated and rebuilt, KDMC officials are hoping to put a stop to the maternity exodus.

"People always talked about how nice the Jackson hospitals were because they had armoires and wooden floors, so we put our money where our mouth is," said Angie Williamson, an LDRP and nursery manager at the hospital.

Williamson has high hopes for KDMC's LDRP department, which was unveiled to the public Sunday afternoon in a grand opening tour that showcased the approximately $2 million upgrade. It was the last department to get a facelift in the three-year, $14 million expansion project that has spread modernity across the 46-year-old facility.

The new LDRP department features nine labor and delivery suites, a self-contained surgical suite for C-sections and a 24-hour nursery. Each room has been customized to provide maximum comfort to admitted mothers, built more like bedrooms than hospital rooms with attractive flooring, adjustable lighting, private bathrooms with large garden bathtubs and painted a soothing, mute green.

The rooms were also built large so families can visit comfortably, and each comes with a full-length couch so dad can stretch out and spend the night in style.

The LDRP rooms also contain the latest technology, including all the necessary bed connections and computer monitors networked with the rest of the hospital. Every tool and material needed to deliver a baby is contained in the room, and mothers go all the way through the process - from admittance to birth to recovery - without ever having to change rooms.

"It's state of the art, and it's absolutely beautiful," Williamson said. "It's what we needed to get us back where we need to be."

KDMC Chief Development Officer Johnny Rainer said the new LDRP department has the potential to boost services across the entire hospital. Labor and delivery services are classified as commercial health care, a service that allows the hospital to make money and offset the profitless treatment of Medicaid and Medicare patients.

"We deliver an average of 60 babies each month, and if we could increase our volume of deliveries to 75 babies each month, that would help the overall picture of the hospital," Rainer said. "We've got four very, very good OB/GYNs and three excellent pediatricians, so remodeling and refurbishing their facilities is a way of trying to keep that business here in our hospital."

KDMC Chief Executive Officer Alvin Hoover said LDRP services can be perpetual, which is why it was so important for the hospital to upgrade its labor and delivery care.

"A lot of the times, momma makes the health care decisions. If you can get a new mom and she has a great experience in your LDRP, she'll come back, and she'll tell her friends and family, too," he said. "LDRP is one of those front doors to the hospital."

With Sunday's LDRP grand opening, the hospital's huge expansion project is officially over. Hoover said there would be more, smaller renovations to come - such as upgrades to the lab and radiology department - but the major work is complete.

"This whole renovation was long overdue. You don't ever want to let your hospital fall behind the times," he said. "What this has allowed us to do is to catch up, and you can get as good a health care here as you can anywhere."