SMITHFIELD - Johnston Medical Center plans to unveil its five-story bed tower next month. Construction is almost finished on the $62-million, 150,000-square-foot expansion, which faces Hospital Road.

"It's going to be new to everybody," said Ruth Marler, the hospital's chief operating officer.

In the new wing, modern medical technology is set among aesthetic touches meant to make the hospital easier on the eye and friendlier to patients and doctors alike.

Huge patches of green, purple and yellow accent walls, and floor-to-ceiling windows send light flooding into the hallways near the operating rooms.

"This is a new image, a new tower," said Marler, who was born in the Smithfield hospital and seems to know every detail of the latest expansion. On a recent tour, she even knew where the cookies would be served in the new dining hall, which will replace the hospital's current cafeteria.

Other parts of the floor plan, like color-coded rooms and strategically-located nurses' stations, should make work flow smoother in the building.

Plus, the new, larger operating theaters have the infrastructure and room to house modern medical machinery. Marler was particularly proud of the 64-slice CT scanner, a three-dimensional people scanner.

In total, the Smithfield hospital will now boast five operating rooms, 19 intermediate-care beds (up from four) and 16 intensive-care beds (up from 10).

The hospital will have the same patient capacity, though it now has the state's permission to add 24 more beds. The addition was meant to modernize the hospital, add more space and allow patients more privacy, officials said.

And Johnston County residents can see it all for themselves at the open house from 2 till 5 p.m. Jan. 10.