96.5 F
San Fernando
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Hospital in Glendale Finishes Second Expansion Phase

Glendale Adventists Medical Center recently completed the second phase of a $220 million expansion project. The hospital has finished building 30,000 square feet of its new west tower, said Warren Tetz, the hospital’s interim CEO. That space includes designated areas for family members of surgery patients, physician locker rooms, a lounge for physicians and surgery storage space, he said. The hospital also relocated its radiology services to the tower’s basement level and opened a new pedestrian access area that connects the hospital’s east and west towers. That pedestrian area — which also will serve as a cross-campus roadway for vehicles starting early next year — already has improved ambulatory access, Tetz said. “For staff, it’s much easier to move patients (and supplies) between the two towers,” he said. “We used to have very circuitous routes.” Jessica Vernabe Dr. Dennis DeLeon, a family practice physician and the hospital’s vice president of medical affairs, said having new route has cut his average daily travel time between hospital facilities by about 10 minutes. He said the tower’s new family care center is also generating excitement. “What we’re finding is patients specifically ask for rooms in the new area,” DeLeon said. The center has space for family members to sleep, prepare meals, watch television, surf the Internet and spend time with the patients, he said. As part of the project’s second phase, the hospital also completed the shell build-out of 11,000 square feet of space in the tower that will be used for ancillary services, which have not yet been identified, Tetz said. The project’s third phase will add 35,000 square feet of space and 60 new beds. The new beds will be part of two new intensive care units and two new surgical telemetry units, Tetz said. The hospital already completed the core and shell for the third and final phase area and is currently adding beds and internal features. Construction is expected to be complete by mid-November, potentially allowing the new units to open in December, he said. The goal of the expansion is to bring the hospital’s facilities closer together and to provide more beds for its growing patient base, Tetz said. “Since 2003, our non-obstetrics services have grown about 45 percent, and that continues to grow very, very strongly,” he said. “We were basically running out of space, so this enables us to grow to continue to meet the community needs.” But the expansion doesn’t stop there. Hospital officials are discussing how to expand the campus even further once the current project is complete, Tetz said. Glendale Adventists Medical Center started planning for its first and second phases of its west tower project in 2000 and started excavation in 2003, Tetz said. The hospital occupied its first phase — a separate part of the west tower — in September 2007 and started working on its second phase immediately afterward, he said. Simi Valley Hospital Nearly Doubles Parking Simi Valley Hospital has increased its parking space capacity by about 40 percent and is working to expand other areas of the hospital, as well. The hospital opened up a new 201-space parking lot last month, creating easier accessibility for its visitors, said Bill Werner, the hospital’s vice president of support services. It brings patients and other visitors closer to the lobby on the other end of the building. “There definitely was an issue because the only parking we had was right outside the emergency room, so all patients, all visitors, all vendors had to park there,” Werner said, noting there were only about 300 spaces available. In other business, Simi Valley Hospital is just a few weeks away from opening a new nuclear medicine area, Werner said. And in about two months, the hospital plans to start construction on a new cardiac catheterization lab, he said. The hospital also plans to start a construction project by the end of the year that will double the size of our emergency department and add one more operating room suite, he said. The project is slated to be complete by fall 2013. “The community has been growing, which is why our (emergency department) is too small,” Werner said. “We are just trying to meet the needs of the community here. Staff Reporter Jessica Vernabe can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or at [email protected]

Featured Articles

Related Articles