April deployment for Fort Hood 1M-SF Darnall Army Medical Center

​​FORT HOOD – The halls of the soon-to-be-open new Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center (CRDAMC) were bustling with activity for a Day in the Life event.​

CRDAMC medical staff were joined by 125 volunteers to run through 43 role-playing scenarios to prepare for the new hospital’s opening in April.

The current CRDAMC main building is around 600,000 sf, and the new CRDAMC main building is nearly 1 million sf—an increase of 60 percent.

The fourth floor houses the Mother-Baby Unit, Labor and Delivery and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Labor and Delivery now has nine delivery rooms, two operating rooms for emergency and planned cesarean sections and three antepartum rooms for expectant mothers who come in with early contractions or other symptoms and need observation.

In the Emergency Department, staff ran through different emergency and trauma scenarios to get used to the new space and new equipment the department has.

All of the scenarios had the volunteer patient and the staff participants, as well as evaluators observing the situation to report back the successes and any problems with the scenarios.

Currently, CRDAMC is a Level III Trauma Center, which means the ED staff have the capabilities and training to take in any-level trauma patient for emergency surgery and stabilization, but once most patients are stable, they would be transported to a Level I or Level II Trauma Center.