By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Samaritan Health Services took a major step in the transformation of medical care in Lincoln County on Thursday when it opened its $63 million main hospital building in Newport.
Moving patients and staff from the 31-year-old Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital into a modern three-story building signaled the stretch run in the medical makeover of the outdated facility.
“We know we’ve been giving really good care in a building that’s 70 years old,” Pacific Communities Hospital chief executive office Lesley Ogden said in an interview with YachatsNews.com. “Now the outside matches the inside and will help us take patient care to the next level.”
Replacing the hospital began in 2015 when voters in the health district that stretches from Yachats to Depoe Bay narrowly approved a $57 million bond. After two years of planning, construction started in May 2017. Because of low interest rates and high ratings, the district ended up needing to sell only $52 million in bonds. Samaritan Health Services is spending $10 million to equip the building. The health district’s foundation is contributing $1 million.
With patients and 430 staff making the move into the new facility Thursday, crews will now turn to the adjacent hospital building. The two-story brick structure will be stripped to its studs for a full seismic upgrade and then remodeled to house seven departments and a new cafeteria.
When it is finished next year the original, one-story hospital built in 1953 will be demolished to make room for parking.
But as big a step as a new hospital is, Samaritan officials are also counting on it to help it recruit and retain the heart of any operation – the doctors, nurses and other medical providers who treat people.
“We needed to solve that problem and we’re already well on our way to doing that,” said Dr. Ralph Breitenstein, vice chairman of the Pacific Communities Health District Board during a tour of the new building. “We had a lot of turnover for awhile but we’ve gotten over that.”
Pacific Communities Hospital is part of the five-hospital Corvallis-based Samaritan Health Services. Ogden also oversees Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City, which is undergoing a $42 million replacement and remodel scheduled to finish next year.
The two are among 25 rural Oregon hospitals designated by the federal government as “critical access” facilities enabling it to get full Medicare reimbursement to cover cost of care. The average Medicare reimbursement is about 85 percent of cost, according to the Oregon Health Authority.
Some 75 percent of Pacific Communities’ patients are on Medicare or Medicaid insurance, Ogden said, with only 18 percent with regular, commercial insurance.
The designation is designed to reduce the financial vulnerability of rural hospitals and improve access to healthcare by keeping essential services in rural communities. Other nearby critical access hospitals are in Florence, Tillamook, Dallas, and Lebanon.
Without the higher reimbursement, Breitenstein said, Pacific Communities could not survive. In 2017 the hospital had total revenue of $92.5 million, according to the state, but net income of $131,000 — a margin of 0.1 percent
The federal designation also protects communities from over-building by limiting the number of hospital beds to 25. Pacific Communities officials say that’s not an issue because it gets 83 percent of its revenue from outpatient services and its average overnight occupancy rate is 10.5.
It also requires the hospital’s emergency room to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Beautiful, modern, bigger
In addition to views of the Pacific Ocean, Yaquina Bay, modern fixtures and soaring ceilings, hospital officials say the new building is designed to help improve patient care and make services more convenient and efficient.
The new inpatient rooms are larger and three of them can become an intensive care room during critical times. If needed, two of those three can also serve as labor and delivery rooms.
“Patients will have a lot more room and privacy,” Breitenstein said.
The hospital’s sleep lab, which currently takes up two inpatient beds, will have its own dedicated area next year and will not use beds in the acute care area.
The new emergency department is greatly expanded with 17 exam rooms — more than double the current number. It has a separate “fast-track” area for treating less serious issues away from the trauma area.
There are two ER rooms specifically designed for mental health patients. A larger helipad is just outside the emergency room, allowing first-responders to quickly wheel patients inside for treatment.
All doctor offices and clinics are located on the second floor with imaging and laboratory services. The old hospital had clinics and labs in separate offices all over campus.
The new hospital has five operating rooms, all of them with new equipment and considerably larger than the current four. There is another operating room in the birthing center that will allow doctors to perform C-sections in that department.
For the first time, the entire imaging department will be in one location. It includes a new MRI machine that is faster and less enclosed for patients who fear tight spaces. Pacific Communities is also adding new CT-scan, ultrasound, mammography, X-ray and an $800,000 nuclear medicine camera.
“It’s as good as you can get,” Breitenstein said. “It’s better than what’s in Corvallis.”
The new building has six elevators, compared with two in the old building. It’s also designed to allow staff to move patients privately through a back hallway rather than through common areas of the old hospital.
Finding and keeping medical providers
In addition to the makeover of facilities, Pacific Communities officials believe they have turned the corner on recruiting and retention of medical providers.
In 2017, Ogden sent out a candid letter to hospital district patrons, admitting the hospital had a problem getting doctors and others to come to Newport and stay.
“I felt strongly that we could fix this,” Ogden said. “We needed to address this head on and then fix it.”
In the past two years, she said, they have recruited 22 doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners and retained all but one, who is retiring.
It helps to show prospective employees the new hospital, Ogden said. But Pacific Communities has added a recruiting specialist who focuses only on the Newport and Lincoln City hospitals. They are identifying prospects open to a rural lifestyle, also communicating with a prospect’s family, involving hospital employees and have upgraded video and printed recruiting material tailored to the new hospital and the Oregon coast. Ogden said they have turned down prospects “who wouldn’t have been a good fit.”
That has helped the hospital recently add endocrinology services, two psychiatrists, and quickly find a replacement for a retiring Newport pediatrician. A podiatrist is coming in March.
And, with additional space in the new hospital, Ogden said Pacific Communities should be able to get more specialists to come over from the Willamette Valley several days a week.
“My goal is that no one leave the coast to get the basic level of care, especially diagnostics,” she said. “Previously we haven’t always been able to do that. Now with this building it should be the impetus for people to say, “I can get my care locally.’
“How often in a rural area do you get a new hospital,” Ogden said. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
Click on the picture below to see a construction animation of Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital