Published August 2003

Health-care Briefs

Stevens Hospital: 2003 losses
could hit $2.5 million
Taxpayer-supported Stevens Hospital lost an estimated $1.8 million in the first five months of this year, and hospital officials say operating losses could hit $2.5 million by year’s end.

If so, that loss would mark a string of consecutive losses dating to 1998 for the Edmonds public hospital and its related organizations. With officials reporting operating losses of $16.9 million between 1998 and 2001, cumulative losses could total $19.4 million.

While a number of steps are being taken to cut expenses this year, no big changes are in the works, such as layoffs, closing the hospital or merging with another organization, said Beth Engel, hospital spokeswoman.

Hospital officials don’t see the current year as a financial crisis, she said, noting that the hospital has $17 million in reserves, a portion of which could be used this year.

The operating budget for the hospital and its seven medical clinics is $132.8 million. It has 1,450 full- and part-time employees.

A four-story, $13.8 million medical office building called Stevens Pavilion recently opened on the hospital campus. It will house an outpatient surgery center, sleep lab and imaging center offering mammograms, X-rays and ultrasound tests.

Officials are predicting a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in the number of patients going to the imaging center, and as much as 60 percent more patients using the sleep lab, Engel said. An increase in patients would bring more money to the hospital.

Providence opens $4.5 million,
one-stop cardiac care unit
One of the main features of a new $4.5 million cardiac care unit at Providence Everett Medical Center is what won’t happen to patients.

Rather than shuffling them from critical care to recovery units as their condition improves one or two days after surgery, patients will stay in one room.

The result is more convenience for patients, hospital stays cut by a half-day and quicker recoveries, said Tom Brennan, assistant administrator for the heart program.

The July opening of the 15-bed unit comes 20 years after the first heart surgery was performed at the hospital. Last year, 573 heart surgeries took place there. This year, the hospital expects to treat 650 heart surgery patients, with about half treated in the new unit, said Michelle James, manager of the new care unit.

Everett’s new single-room cardiac unit is thought to be the first of its kind in Washington, said Dr. Jim Brevig, who helped launch the project. It’s modeled after similar units at Loma Linda Medical Center in Southern California and Methodist Hospital at Indiana University.

The Everett hospital has a similar one-room concept for labor and delivery in its birth unit, which opened in May 2002.

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