Expansion to double patient capacity, reduce wait

By Dave Schwab
SDUN Reporter

Scripps Mercy Hospital’s trauma center, the county’s busiest with morethan 2,500 patients treated in fiscal year 2009, is poised to become even busier upon completion of a three-phase, multimillion-dollar expansion.

The hospital, located in the heart of Hillcrest at 4077 Fifth Ave., is more than doubling the existing size of its emergency department from 12,000 to 27,000 square feet and adding 16 beds to its severely undersized, 27-bed facility. The department will enlarge to 43 patient exam and treatment areas — a 79 percent increase. Level 1, its most comprehensive, two-bed trauma center, is expanding to three spacious bays capable of treating up to six patients simultaneously.

The expansion is more than just physical, said Davis Cracroft, the hospital’s senior medical director and an Emergency Department physician. Scripps Mercy’s upgraded emergency department will embrace a more progressive treatment philosophy, he said. Patients will no longer have to wait for extended periods. They will be assigned a bed or recliner upon arrival and immediately seen by a nurse.

“Patients (will be) seen by physicians/nurses in less than 30 minutes,” Cracroft said. The emergency department waiting room will be occupied by fewer patients awaiting treatment, leaving more room for family members or friends.

That’s a marked improvement in efficiency.

“Sometimes it’s taken as long as three hours to see a doctor just because we had limited beds and patients would be sitting in waiting rooms to use those beds,” Cracroft said. “What in effect has happened is we’ve doubled the number of spaces available for patients to go to. They really don’t have any frustration with the long wait time anymore.”
Critically injured or very sick patients will still go to traditional beds for treatment.

“That part has not changed,” Cracroft said.

The change in treatment mode was long overdue, he said.

“Seventy percent of our patients are not critically ill or need emergency treatment,” he said. “Most of the time they have more isolated problems that can now be addressed more quickly Patients can be discharged in much less time.”

It’s the biggest – and arguably the most exciting – expansion the hospital has undertaken, said Mary Braunwarth, executive director of the Mercy Hospital Foundation, the hospital’s fundraising arm.

“It’s a $50 million capital campaign in three phases, five times larger than any capital campaign we’ve ever undertaken,” she said, noting that phase 1, the $25 million emergency trauma center expansion, is already paid for and under construction. “This was really the biggest piece of our capital campaign: The most important piece… . It’s the front door to the hospital.”

Emergency Department construction has necessitated reshaping of the hospital site as well as some redistribution of local traffic patterns, said Rick Gorton, the hospital’s administrative director of facilities and support services. “The (existing) parking lot will become a building and there is a realignment of Fifth Avenue as it comes off Washington Street and accesses the hospital,” he said. “That windy, curvy road is getting straightened out. To make it safer, we’re going to have a crosswalk.”

Roadwork around the hospital is intended to make it more user-friendly, said Kirk Collins, Scripps Project manager.

“It will enlarge the frontage for pedestrians and provide access making drop offs much easier,” he said.

Braunwarth said the foundation is fully involved in fundraising for the $15 million second phase of the hospital’s expansion, which will transform two of its operating rooms into state-of-the-art robotic surgery suites, a $5 million project.

“We’re going to need another $10 million to upgrade our cancer center,” Braunwarth said. “The whole goal is $15 million and we’re at $6 million.”

The third and final phase of Mercy Hospital’s expansion will cost $10 million and involve upgrades to Intensive Care Units.The new and improved emergency facility is being named the Conrad Prebys Emergency and Trauma Center, in honor of San Diego philanthropist Conrad Prebys’ $10 million gift. Collins said the first phase of the hospital’s expansion is expected to be done in July.

“Phase two will take off in September, and it’s a one-year project,” he said. “Phase three will take another year after that and be ready by September 2012. Concurrently with Phase three will be Phase four, renovation of the public parking and ambulance parking on the other side of Fifth Avenue.”

Complete build-out of the trauma center, which broke ground on Feb. 1, 2010, is expected by early 2013.

Scripps Mercy is San Diego County’s largest hospital and one of the 10 largest in California. It is the county’s first and only Catholic hospital, founded in downtown San Diego by the Sisters of Mercy in 1890.