St. Rose gears for second hospital

      As Henderson approaches the next millennium, the city prepares for the blooming of a new rose.
      Groundbreaking for St. Rose Dominican Hospital's Siena Campus, located at the southwest corner of Lake Mead Drive and Eastern Avenue, took place on June 15. More than 200 people attended the ceremony in which Mayor Jim Gibson acknowledged the need for a second full-service hospital in the fastest-growing city in America.
      "It's really counter to the trend that we would be building a new hospital -- adding rooms, bringing in new doctors and other professionals -- to serve the needs of a dynamic and growing area," Gibson said. "To have the standard be set by St. Rose Dominican is to raise the bar, to influence the quality of medical care and attention to a new level. This hospital will help St. Rose Dominican achieve that."
      The facility is scheduled to open with 139 beds in early 2000, with another 161 beds slated to be added in 2006. Cost for the first phase is budgeted at $85 million, while the second phase is slated to cost $100 million. St. Rose is the only not-for-profit, non-tax supported and religiously sponsored health care facility in Southern Nevada.
      Funding for the Siena Campus, which is scheduled to be about 323,000 square feet in size on 28.9 acres, will be generated through hospital operations, fund raising and long-term financing. The Del E. Webb Foundation already has pledged $3 million to help build and equip the new facility and the adjacent professional center, named the Del E. Webb Medical Plaza.
      The creation of the second hospital will help alleviate the overcrowding which now is facing St. Rose's existing facility, dubbed the Rose de Lima Campus to distinguish it from the Siena Campus. The current hospital, which has 147 beds, operates at an average 89 percent capacity.
      "We've done a good job of bringing St. Rose Dominican into the next century," said Gibson, who also chairs the hospital's board of directors. "We have maxed out in terms of our capacity there. And with all the growth that's happening out here now, this was an ideal time to start this kind of a project."
      The new hospital, located about eight miles west of the existing St. Rose facility, will enhance the establishment's position as Henderson's second-largest employer. Upon completion of the Siena Campus, St. Rose will increase its workforce from 800 to 1,400 employees.
      The 600 new jobs will command an annual payroll of $20 million, which is expected to generate $100 million for the local economy. The combined payroll of both facilities is expected to be $52 million in 2002, which will bring more than $250 million to the community's economy.
      St. Rose is a member of Catholic Healthcare West, the largest not-for-profit health care provider in the West. Catholic Healthcare West includes 37 hospitals, 6,400 physicians and 30,000 employees, operating in California, Arizona and Nevada. Last year, it provided more than $237 million in free or low-cost community benefits and care for the poor.
      Rod Davis, president and chief executive officer for St. Rose since 1991, said the new facility will provide the same care which has been the staple of the Rose de Lima Campus, while also featuring some new twists.
      "We're really focusing on technology, on information systems to get clinical information to the caregivers in the most rapid and accurate way possible and É patient comfort," Davis said. "If you can enhance a patient's sense of well being and relieve a sense of anxiety and fear, so that they feel a more peaceful environment, that's actually conducive to the healing process. And we think that's an important part of health care and will be even more important in the future."
      The interior design will emphasize positive emotions through the use of art, flowers and music. At admission, patients will bypass the traditional admitting department and be escorted directly to their assigned rooms. An admitting associate will then come into the room to complete the necessary paperwork at bedside.
      Davis said St. Rose is also "retrofitting" its older campus to offer the same type of amenities as the new facility.
      The new campus was named after Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), who devoted her life to prayer and caring for the sick and poor.
      The architectural firm of HKS Inc. of Dallas has been selected as the architect for the Siena Campus, which will feature a 100-foot bell tower near the hospital entrance. Kitchell Contractors of Phoenix was awarded the construction contract.
      Lou LaPorta, the hospital's first chair of the board of directors, said the groundbreaking follows the 1947 sale of the hospital from the United States government to the Adrian Dominican Sisters for one dollar and the 1988 partnership with Catholic Healthcare West as the most important events in the history of St. Rose, which was founded in 1942 as Basic Magnesium Hospital by the federal government as part of the war effort to provide health care to the area's industrial workers and their families.
      "This is a very exciting day," LaPorta said. "We never dreamt of this."