New life for old hospital as new one fills up
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. - Open since summer 2008, Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend hospital is not even three years old.
Already, bed space is getting a little cramped.
"This is the highest we've experienced throughout, especially since the opening of Riverbend during this time," says Tim Herrmann, Vice President of Patient Care at Sacred Heart's RiverBend and University District hospitals.
Numbers from the Oregon Association of Hospitals show Riverbend with 81 percent of its hospital beds full during 2010.
In the fall, it spiked to 85 percent. Oregon's average for all hospitals is 61 percent of beds used.
Herrmann said it's good problem: patients don't have to go to Portland for modern, critical hospital care. He said patients come to RiverBend from Coos Bay, Roseburg and other cities in the region.
But the full house begs the question: Is patient care compromised?
"Certainly, we're always concerned when we have long ER waits when that goes up, so we watch that very closely," Hermann said.
As Riverbend continues to grow, officials are looking west for relief to the University District campus in Eugene, where a $72 million remodeling project is in the planning stage. >>> Artist renditions
What the operator PeaceHealth would like to do is put the two hospitals more in balance as far as number of patients.
One way they plan to do that is with new programs at the University District aimed at seniors like the ACE unit, said said Dr. Jeffery Larkin, Medical Director of the Gerontology Institute at the hospital.
ACE stands for "Acute Care for Elders" unit. It's a specialty care unit set up to help seniors recover quickly from acute illness and keep as many out of nursing homes as possible.
Larkin said it and other programs position the Eugene hospital well for the future.
"With the Johnson Unit, psychiatry, physical medicine, rehabilitation, Acute Care for Elders unit, it offers an alternative type care," Larkin said.
Officials also hope remodeling University District will probovide relief for the busy RiverBend campus.
Oregon Association of Hospital numbers show when RiverBend isn't leading the state's hospitals for percentage of beds in use, Oregon Health and Sciences University hospital has the highest percentage of beds in use.
RiverBend is rated as having 334 licensed hospital beds. University District (the former Sacred Heart Medical Center before the move to RiverBend) is licensed at 96 beds.
