Hospital approved for expansion

MAT-SU -- There's a little celebrating going on at Valley Hospital this week, as officials spread the news their request to expand the hospital has been approved.

"We're very happy," Valley Hospital spokeswoman Elizabeth Ripley said. "We're happy for the community, because our community needs this facility. It's really a win-win situation."

Wednesday, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Joel Gilbertson announced his approval of Valley Hospital's certificate of need. The approval will allow the hospital to build a more than 160,000-square-foot, 74-bed acute care hospital near the intersection of Trunk Road and the Parks Highway.

"The department acknowledges the growth of the Mat-Su area, and the needs in the area, to justify this decision," Gilbertson said in a press release. "We will continue to work, in a fiscally responsible manner, to expand access to care for all Alaska residents. The approval of this facility's certificate of need is part of that effort."

Ripley said they were pleased by the outcome of the certificate of need process.

"Essentially, we got everything we asked for, except two beds," Ripley said.

There were a few items Ripley said hospital officials were concerned about obtaining approval for. The biggest item, she said, was a third floor for the facility. The floor, to be primarily used for medical and surgical, or med/surg beds, is part of the hospital's long-term expansion plans and likely wouldn't be used until 2013, but Ripley said they hoped to save money by building it with the rest of the building. The shell-in was approved, Ripley said, with the caveat that it only be used for the med/surg beds, as is the current plan -- any other use may require an additional certificate of need process.

There was one area where the hospital got less than it requested, Ripley said. In the certificate of need, 76 beds were requested for the first phase of construction at the new facility. Gilbertson granted 74 beds, but it's not clear from the preliminary information which department was reduced. Ripley said she'll know more when she gets a copy of the approved certificate of need.

The new facility will replace the existing 40-bed facility in Palmer. It will have a 14-bed intensive care unit, a 50-bed med/surg unit, a 10-bed obstetrics unit and one new operating room. The existing urgent care center in Wasilla at the West Valley Medical Center will close and the services will be integrated into the new hospital's emergency department, the urgent care center will hold administrative offices, allowing staff to move out of leased space on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

The certificate of need approval was one of several major steps remaining to be completed before the groundbreaking can start, but Ripley said the other steps are falling into place as well. The agreement between Valley Hospital and Triad Hospitals Inc. is set to be finalized on Dec. 1, Ripley said, and was contingent on an approved certificate of need. The finalization of that agreement will allow them to close the deals on the 25 to 30 acres of land that will house the new facility, she said.

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska will soon be determining whether Wasilla or Palmer is best suited to provide sewer and water utilities to the facility, and the hospital received word recently that the Omnibus Spending Bill, now in the U.S. Senate, contains language encouraging a grant for the chosen city to fund the utility expansion. According to staff from U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office, the bill is expected to be among the last legislation passed before the body's Thanksgiving break.

Ripley said they plan to break ground on the new facility in May, after Best View Trailer Park residents have been given a year to move from their lots on a 15-acre parcel that will be part of the new hospital land. Construction is estimated to be complete and a grand opening tentatively scheduled for May or June 2008 -- a much longer delay time than Triad has taken in other areas, she said.

"Triad is extremely experienced in building hospitals," Ripley said. "In the Lower 48, they build them in 10 months."

This facility, she said, has a few challenges that will make the construction season longer than in other parts of the nation. The extension of sewer and water lines, for example, will take considerable time, and the construction season is shorter in Alaska than parts of the Lower 48.

In the long run, she said, about 680 construction jobs are expected to be provided as the project is built. About 1,800 jobs are expected to be available at the new facility, producing nearly $107 million in annual revenues if market shares stay level. The Mat-Su Borough estimated it will gain about $1.3 million yearly in tax revenue from the new facility.

"Obviously, this is a huge economic development project for the Mat-Su Borough," Ripley said. "It crosses so many levels, but obviously, the most important for us is public health."