Demand fuels hospital expansions.

Demand for healthcare is at an all-time high despite innovations in medical care, antibiotics and safety products as well as pressure for shorter hospital stays.

In 2005, 13 out of the 20 largest hospitals in the San Fernando Valley reported increases in the number of patients being served each day.

Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center led the pack with a 7.1 percent increase from 2004 to 2005 in patients, which topped 301 patients served on an average day. The facility also reported that 80 percent of its 396 rooms were full each day, compared to 75 percent in 2004.

Emergency rooms are also overloaded, enough that a UCLA study in 2005 found that one in seven emergency patients in the western portion of the San Fernando Valley were diverted to another hospital because of overcrowding.

The increases are due to an upswing in the area's population to more people using hospitals as their primary care providers, jamming emergency rooms.

The demand is worsened as the number of hospitals in the San Fernando Valley dwindles. Since 1989, more than a dozen local medical institutions have closed their doors, including the Granada Hills Community Hospital in 2003 and Northridge Hospital Medical Center Sherman Way facility in 2004.

Hospitals are also being pressured to comply with deadlines for seismic retrofitting, required to make sure structures will withstand future temblors. Add that to complex state regulations and limited contractors available.

"Those costs have just gone berserk," Beverly Gilmore, president and CEO of West Hills Hospital and Medical Center.

The budget for her new project--a two-story, 47,000-square-foot expansion--has skyrocketed.

"Ours has gone up 50 percent in a year," she said. "From $40 million last year. Now it's $60 million."

Still, the blitz will continue through 2007, with nearly every medical institution tackling one project or another, be it building a new patient tower at Glendale Adventist or wing at The Jewish Home for the Aging to expanding the emergency room at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia.

Big projects, big budgets

The bulk of the attention on hospital projects has been focused on four major constructions with price tags soaring past $100 million each.

One of the most extensive is a $116 million project for a 254-bed facility at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.

Plans call for a ground-up four-story, 101-bed patient care tower, expansion of the intensive care unit, 12-bed neonatal intensive care unit, gastroenterology lab, surgery and other services.

The hospital is also working on a 6,600-square-foot expansion of its 15-bed emergency department, constructed in 1977 to serve 15,000 patients a year.

In recent years, that number has grown to 45,000 patients, including 1,600 trauma victims.

Holy Cross Administrator Kerry Carmody said the increase would double the size to 34 beds and cost around $7.8 million, much of it donated. Construction is scheduled to finish by November, said spokesman Dan Boyle.

Three other large projects in the region are at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Palmdale Regional Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Panorama City and Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

At 448 beds and more than 2,100 employees, Glendale Adventist is already one of the largest hospitals in the Valley. But despite its size, the hospital is having a hard time keeping up.

The facility, which first opened in 1905, saw its average daily census rise 2.7 percent to 300.9 patients from 2004 to 2005. Its occupancy rate also jumped from 64.84 percent in 2004 to 67.19 percent last year.

The hospital is caring for 80 to 100 more patients today than it did four years ago.

The centerpiece of the plan is a new, seven-story patient care tower that includes patient care facilities, an expanded emergency department and surgery sites, new cardiovascular center and intensive care unit, said spokeswoman Alicia Gonzalez.

Next door, plans are in the works for a four-story medical office building that will house a dozen physicians and a 16,000-square-foot ambulatory surgical center, and a 500-space parking structure.

Palmdale project

In north L.A. County, meanwhile, Universal Health Services is moving forward with an ambitious plan for a ground-up 171-bed hospital and two-building office complex called Palmdale Regional Medical Center.

Blueprints are still being worked out, but the project has a price tag of $170 million, said Bob Trautman, a Universal Health Services official.

Back in the San Fernando Valley, Kaiser Permanente has launched dual multi-million projects.

It's spending $267 million to construct a six-level, 400,000-square-foot acute care facility in Panorama City. The project will include 218 beds, an inpatient-care diagnostic and treatment facility, inpatient and outpatient surgery, labor and delivery and neonatal intensive care, said Cathy Casas, director of hospital operations for Kaiser Permanente.

It replaces the existing 1960s-era Kaiser facility at Woodman Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard, which does not meet state seismic standards.

The facility is slated to open this summer.

In the West Valley, Kaiser is also building out a portion of an unused tower on the east side of its Woodland Hills campus for medical surgical beds, Casas said.

Seismic issues are also at the core of a new patient care tower being planned at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Vice President of Operations Ron Rozanski said the 130-bed facility would replace two seismically deficient buildings, although specific plans have not been worked out.

The project could break ground as soon as 2009 and finish by 2013.

Northridge Hospital is also in the middle of a major, $26 million seismic upgrade of its core building slated to finish by December 2007, Rozanski said.

Medium projects

The massive amount of development in the Simi Valley is also forcing Simi Valley Hospital to expand its facilities, said spokesman Jeremy Brewer.

"Simi and Moorpark has seen a great deal of growth over the past 10 years. We have to keep up with the healthcare needs of the community," he said.

The hospital is keeping up with a five-phase expansion project, centered on a four-story, 146,000-square-foot patient tower with a price tag of almost $60 million.

The structure, which broke ground in 2003, will include 144 private care rooms, 24 intensive care beds, eight labor and delivery rooms and 28 women and children's rooms.

It replaces two hospital wings constructed in 1968 and 1969, and part of the 1964 building.

Construction is slated to finish next spring.

Back at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, crews are building a $71 million patient care tower on the northeast side of its campus at Alameda Avenue and Buena Vista.

Plans are also moving forward with the four-story, 55,000-square-foot Roy and Patricia Disney Cancer Center at Buena Vista Street and Alameda Avenue, which will feature new radiation and diagnosis technology, a medical library and a resource center.

Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks is also constructing a 200,000-square-foot wing with 91 beds and plans are in the works to further renovate Mission Community Hospital, which in 2003 saw a new patient care tower added to its Panorama City campus.

Smaller facilities

The expansion is hardly refined to large, big-budget facilities.

Antelope Valley Hospital in Palmdale is also mulling over a proposal to expand its 379-bed facility, which added a $24 million Women and Infants Pavilion earlier this year.

A master plan could include a larger emergency room and a new tower.

The Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda is building a new 249-bed skilled nursing facility called the Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Center, which will also house a 10-bed geriatric psychiatric unit. That project is slated to open next year, said spokeswoman Bonnie Polishuk.

Last month, Henry Mayo Memorial Hospital in Valencia opened its new and expanded emergency room, which includes 9,000 square feet of additional space, 18 new beds, nurses' station, medication room and paramedic station.

The project cost $14.1 million.

Plans are also in the works to upgrade the existing 1975 emergency room, which will cost an additional $6.8 million.

Also in Santa Clarita, Providence Holy Cross Medical Center recently built an 83,000-square-foot health center that has outpatient surgery service, cancer care and imaging.

BY CHRIS COATES 

Staff Reporter