HOSPITAL RETHINKS FACILITY WOMEN'S HEALTH, OBSTETRICS TO BE NEW FOCUS OF BUILDING.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Hospital will pay an architectural firm $1.5 million to redesign the hospital's skilled nursing facility into a women's health and obstetrics center.

The conversion of the building to the Women's and Infant's Pavilion is the latest shift in focus for the facility, which was plagued with three years of delays and cost increases before it opened last year.

``The Women's and Infant's Pavilion is designed to provide all the medical services that are unique to women and infants,'' board chairman Gary Hill said. ``It will have OB rooms, labor and delivery rooms, and a birthing area that will allow the family to be in with the mother. It will provide areas for the latest technological care of infants immediately after birth.''

The board at Wednesday's meeting approved the hiring of Los Angeles- based RBB Architects Inc. to prepare the architectural drawings of the redesign.

There were no estimates for the construction cost, but the hospital does not want to spend more than $15 million, Hill said. ``We will find out what the cost is as we get further into the design,'' Hill said.

No construction start date has been set.

The $21 million Transitional Care Unit, located south of the main hospital building, opened last May, three years behind schedule and at a cost of nearly double the original estimate.

The facility is intended for recovering patients who no longer need acute care but are not ready to go home.

Hospital officials broke ground in 1997 for what was then planned as a 99-bed skilled nursing home, projected at a cost of $11 million and expected to be completed in less than a year.

Officials attributed the delays and cost increases to a number of factors, including poor oversight of construction by hospital officials, changes made because of new government regulations, and excessively low original cost estimates.

Because of less-than-expected demand for skilled-nursing services, coupled with reduced federal reimbursements for provision of that kind of care, the hospital said it would not be cost-effective to use the facility for care of the elderly.

``It (the conversion) will give us a more effective and efficient utilization of that facility,'' Hill said.

The construction of other assisted living and transitional care facilities reduced the demand for such beds at the hospital's unit, Hill added.

The Transitional Care Unit has 28 beds.

The hospital has not determined whether to license the converted facility as a separate hospital, which would provide the hospital more flexibility in providing care and possibly more favorable reimbursement rates.

Separate licensing would require the addition of two more operating rooms to the facility's five.

Once the Women's and Infant's center is completed, the transitional care beds will be shifted back to the main hospital.