A recent study at the University of California, San Francisco reported that one out of every four hospital emergency departments have shut down in the past 20 years, even as ED visits have increased by 35%. The strain of regulatory pressures on today’s medical facilities is causing significant gaps, if not chasms, in the infrastructure of America’s health care.
Indeed, in the past few years the media outlets around the nation have reported on myriad stories about lost hospitals. Less frequent are the stories about new hospitals, although they do exist from time to time. The tales of relocated hospitals, however, provide an interesting perspective on health care today.
There is nothing easy about moving a hospital, especially if the transition includes the continuity of care without disruption, like the case of St. Anthony Hospital in Denver, Colorado. Starting June 17, 2011, the new hospital just outside of Denver in the City of Lakewood will provide the highest level of care in a state-of-the-art environment consisting of eight floors and 560,000 square feet. With a price tag of about $435 million, the new St. Anthony Hospital will include:
- A Level I Trauma Center
- 222 private inpatient rooms (including 76 Intensive Care, 128 Medical/Surgical, and 18 Inpatient Rehabilitation beds)
- 36 Emergency Department rooms, including four trauma rooms
- 14 surgical suites
- 14,000 electrical outlets
- 2,400 doors
- 246 clocks, all synchronized by GPS to one-tenth of a second
- A separate orthopedic specialty hospital
The hospital’s website provided a statement about the reasons for the move:
“The current hospital is more than 100 years old, so we are faced with an aging facility that was not designed for modern technology. It wasn’t going to be efficient or cost-effective to refurbish the existing building. And since we are land locked, there is no room to expand to add much needed medical office buildings for our physicians. [¶] The leadership team looked at several sites for the relocation of the hospital. The Lakewood site was selected because it remains part of our existing service area, allowing us to continue providing care to people in west Denver and beyond. St. Anthony Hospital’s move to Lakewood will allow us the space we need to provide excellent medical services to patients from throughout the region. The new facility will be more spacious and allows us to accommodate emerging technologies of the future. And with two medical office buildings that will be walkway-attached, it will be much more convenient for our physician partners and patients to access the hospital.”
The 119 year old hospital has spent the past 30 months planning the six mile move. Timing and precision are critical, especially since state law prohibits the hospital from operating two separate emergency departments at the same time. Indeed, as the old hospital closes as of 12:00 am on June 16, 2011, the new facility will open at 12:01 am the following day (or one minute later).
Aside from ensuring that emergency services remain uninterrupted, the hospital will also move about 155 patients. Starting at 7:00 am, patients will depart the old hospital three ambulances at a time, heading for three separate entrances, carrying one ICU and two Med/Surg patients each. This will repeat ten minutes later. The ambulances will be staffed with a registered nurse and at least three other staff members. As an added measure of protection, medical helicopters will be on stand-by. Most of the hospital’s 2,000 physicians, employees and volunteers will be working that day.
According to hospital CEO Dr. Ray Mencini: “Our No. 1 priority during the move is patient safety and patient care, and after nearly 2 1/2 years of careful planning and preparation, we have thought through many scenarios and have developed contingency plans to account for any unforeseen circumstances.”
As for the economic impact of the move, the hospital provides a statement for that as well:
“In studies by the Lewin Group on behalf of the American Hospital Association, it is estimated that, for every dollar a Colorado hospital spends, it supports an additional $1.40 in business activity in the area. In our most recent fiscal year, St. Anthony spent approximately $204 million on payroll, medical supplies and other expenses. That would generate an additional $336 million in economic activity in the area. The same study shows that in Colorado, each hospital job creates an additional 1.1 jobs due to indirect business and household spending.”