Hospital Construction Brings New Medical Services
Published Feb 13, 2009
The 500,000-square-foot Providence Cancer Center offers patient care that is tied in with research programs.
The rat-a-tat-tat of jackhammers and the roar of construction vehicles are welcome noise in the Portland region, where expansions of health-care facilities mean improved and more convenient medical services for area residents.
In February 2008, Providence Health & Services, a not-for-profit network spanning five Western states, opened its gleaming cancer center at Providence Portland Medical Center.
The cancer center is “designed from a patient perspective,” says David Underriner, chief executive officer of Providence’s Portland Service Area. “We looked upon this as an opportunity to design a system of care to serve cancer patients in a different way. We offer a very strong continuum of care, tied in with research and community-based programs.”
The Providence Cancer Center covers 500,000 square feet on seven floors, plus a garden level and space reserved for future growth. “It invites people to come in and interact,” says Underriner, describing the center’s main floor that features prevention and support services, a learning center, and a spa.
Medical-service floors house inpatient rooms, surgery suites and areas for advanced treatments such as the Gamma Knife Perfexion, which precisely targets 201 beams of radiation on head and neck tumors.
Also setting the Providence Cancer Center apart is its research floor. “We’ve designed state-of-the-art research facilities that are attracting folks from around the country to come and practice, mainly in immunology,” Underriner says. “You’ve got scientists interacting with clinicians and patients, so they’re not just in a laboratory. It’s very motivating, and it really adds to the intellectual synergy.”
Including a parking structure and extensive utility work, the project cost about $230 million.
Construction Starts for Children’s Hospital
Approximately $250 million is the price tag for Legacy Health System’s plans to build a new Emanuel Children’s Hospital and renovate Emanuel Hospital & Health Center in Portland. Legacy is a not-for-profit, Oregon-based health system with six hospitals.
April Whitworth, Emanuel Hospital & Health Center’s chief administrative officer, says the Children’s Hospital is “a hospital within a hospital, and we wanted to give it its own identity.” Thus, Legacy broke ground in fall 2008 on a stand-alone children’s tower, adjacent and connected to the main hospital.
“It will very much be a cornerstone and a landmark in this community,” Whitworth predicts.
Opening the new Emanuel Children’s Hospital in 2011 will free up space in the main hospital for an expanded emergency department and more acute-level and critical-care patient rooms.
Emanuel Hospital, a Level 1 trauma center, has experienced an 8 percent increase in patient volume for three years in a row, pushing occupancy to 90 percent of capacity.
The first phase of the project, a new parking garage, is scheduled for completion in spring 2009. About the same time, renovation and expansion in the main hospital will begin in phases, including a revamped main entrance and lobby.
Legacy takes on this project just three years after it completed construction of Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital in Vancouver, Wash.
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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