Hospital unveils new name

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - Nearly 70 years ago, the Presbyterian church established the Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Palmer. Since then, the name has changed to Valley Hospital.

Now with a new merger and new building under construction, the hospital's name is set to change again to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

Hospital CEO Norman Stephens on Wednesday revealed the new name to a limited audience before making a public announcement to hospital employees and physicians Thursday.

"A huge amount of work and effort went into selecting that name even if it is fairly simple," Stephens said Wednesday.

Over the last year, a series of telephone polls, written polls and focus group questions were posed to local residents, employees, physicians and board members, who all weighed in on possible names. The final decision was made by the Valley Hospital board of directors.

Valley Hospital merged with Triad Hospitals Inc. in December 2003. Triad is a company that owns more than 50 hospitals across the country. With Triad's financial resources, the merger was an effort on the part of Valley Hospital to meet growing demands on the old facility.

"The problem with most smaller hospitals are having these days is lack of capital money to build new facilities," Stephens said. "Triad is a company that has been very successful in generating capital."

If not for the merger, there wouldn't have been money to expand hospital operations and services.

The original Valley Hospital will retain 24 percent ownership of the new hospital, but will have 50 percent say in governance.

The merger created a joint-venture board of directors, comprised of five members of Valley Hospital Association and five Triad Hospital officials. That board now makes all major policy decisions for the hospital, and its members decided a new name was in order.

"The name 'Valley' kept popping up, but the board felt like there was going to be such an increase in what we are doing here," Stephens said. "The whole place is changing. Valley Hospital is the old name and the board felt like we really needed to look at where we were going in the future."

Stephens was quick to point out that a name says only so much about a place.

"Who we are and what we do will speak volumes more than the hospital's name," he stated through a press release Thursday.

Once the new building is complete, the hospital plans to add more specialized positions in pulmonology, neurology, pediatrics, cardiology, gastroenterology, oncology, pediatric surgery and other categories of care.

As far as the old hospital building in Palmer is concerned, Stephens said Triad Hospitals Inc. is looking for a potential buyer.

"We are looking at the community needs and what would make sense," he said. "We talked about a psychiatric corporation or a long-term-care operation."

The new hospital site will increase the hospital's inpatient capacity by 85 percent, while doubling the number of operating rooms. The hospital also estimates that roughly 140 more employees will be needed at the new facility and the total cost of construction will be approximately $100 million.

"I think the thing you're going to see [is] that the new hospital with its state-of-the-art building is going to be so much more efficient than what we've had here in the past," Stephens said. "There will be very little that we can't take care of."

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.