Hospital growing up and up

     By Tina Allen
     View staff writer
      MountainView Hospital is growing up, with help from a $33.5 million expansion.
      The 3-year-old hospital, which is operating at capacity, is adding two floors on top of its existing four-story structure.
      MountainView's parent company is Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., which owns and operates more than 300 hospitals and other healthcare facilities in 36 states, England and Switzerland.
      "It's really the first time anyone can remember such an aggressive expansion for a hospital that is still brand new," said Peter Miller, chief financial officer at MountainView. "I know within the Columbia/HCA chain of hospitals it's never happened. Nationally, you really don't see 3-year-old hospitals start an expansion this large."
      Mark Howard, president and chief executive officer, said the need for additional space is based on two factors: growth in the area and the hospital's ideal location at 3100 N. Tenaya Way at Cheyenne Avenue. High Gallop Poll ratings also are hinting the community is content with MountainView's services.
      In fact, polls from last December reveal a 93 percent patient satisfaction rate.
      "Gallop polls are still coming back good, but not as good as we'd like them," Howard admitted. "One of the frustrations we've had is we've had so many patients waiting in the emergency center for space. The whole city has been so crowded."
      Howard said since Dec. 27, there have only been three nights the hospital hasn't had patients waiting for rooms in the emergency center.
      But all that should change once the 89,305-square-foot expansion is in place, bringing the total size of the hospital to 287,920 square feet. Construction, being done by Kitchell Contractors -- the same company that built the original hospital -- is expected to be completed by August 2000. The project was designed by CR/a Architects, based in Dallas.
      The expansion will house a number of new beds, including 72 medical-surgical beds, 12 intensive care unit beds, 12 post-partum beds and 12 pre-surgery holding beds, in addition to a new General Electric CAT scanner. Also to be added are two labor and delivery rooms, two Caesarean-section rooms, two X-ray rooms, a catheter laboratory and five operating rooms. There also will be an additional 112 parking spaces.
      Howard said two of the operating rooms will be reserved for open-heart surgery -- a procedure the hospital is adding to its existing services. Several open-heart surgeons are currently on the 1,000-physician staff, he said.
      "It's a challenge adding on to an existing operating hospital," Howard said. "You put up temporary walls on the outside, tear an area down and fix it up, move the temporary walls and go to another section and do the same thing."
      Hospital designs have changed over the years, he said, leaning toward providing patients with more privacy.
      "It used to be they had four-bed wards and semi-private rooms," Howard said. "But then again, they are not building that many new hospitals. In fact, back East they are closing hospitals down (because) they built too many. We are under-bedded in this community.
      "It's great to see the growth out here and it's great the community has accepted us," Howard said. "With any new organization, you have to prove yourself, and one thing we really like is 94 percent of the physicians said they would bring their families or friends here for treatment. That is a great indicator."