MARQUETTE — People seeking emergency care from UP Health System-Marquette will need to visit a new location starting at 6 a.m. Eastern time Sunday.

Patients should continue to visit the existing hospital emergency room at 580 W. College Ave. tonight and early Sunday, but emergency care will transition over to the emergency room located at the new UPHS medical complex at 850 W. Baraga Ave.

“We are basically shutting down one at the same time we are ramping the other one up,” said UPHS-Marquette Emergency Department Director Mike Phillips. “So the patients that we have in the emergency department up until 6 a.m. on Sunday, we will continue to care for those patients. We will transition those patients over (to the new facility) as needed, otherwise they will be discharged from there.”

UPHS Associate Administrator Mary Armijo said the goal is to provide patients seamless care no matter what facility they report to.

“We are supporting the hospital until the last patient moves,” Armijo said. “So we have everything ready and in place at the existing hospital to take care of the patients there. Once the final patient is moved out of the hospital, we are already equipped and ready at the new facility.”

Phillips said he and his staff are excited to move over to the new facility, which will include new cardiac monitors, medication dispensing machines and a variety of other aspects that will create a more efficient patient flow.

“We’ve got new larger trauma rooms, single bay trauma rooms versus the double that we had before,” Phillips said. “We’ve got new computer interfaces. So just some new tech that we are looking forward to using. I think it will make a big difference, just in regards to our, even just our patient flow, how we take care of them and how we capture information and data on them. It’s going to help not only our nurses, but our physicians provide better care.”

Philips said although the move represents a lot of effort on the part of hospital staff, the end result will be worth it.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how much work it was, from the big components, right down to the smallest of details, it was a lot of work by everybody here at the hospital,” Phillips said. “In the E.D. we are coming from probably the newer part of the hospital (on College Avenue), but it is aging.”

Meanwhile, medical teams plan to transfer about 120 patients from the current facility to the new complex starting at 6 a.m. Sunday.

Mary Armijo, UPHS associate administrator, said the patients will be transferred one at a time via ambulance traveling west from the hospital on College Avenue to Seventh Street where they will travel south to Baraga Avenue.

“We worked with the city, so they are working with us to ensure that we have traffic control,” Armijo said.

Patients are being arranged into four moving groups, and the specific time of the move will depend on the patient’s individual condition.

Access to both hospitals will be limited on Sunday, with access at the new facility restricted to patients being transferred, approved patient visitors and patients seeking emergency services.

Visitors will be allowed to see patients at the new hospital starting at noon.

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242.