Published May 2002

Community benefits with partnership
of health-care providers

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

Two years ago, Ann and Blaine McNeil’s lives “turned upside down.”

At the time, the Snohomish couple were expecting their third child. But in early June, Ann went to the hospital with kidney stones.

Due to the intense pain Ann was experiencing, the doctor suggested surgery, with the understanding that the risk of going into labor was minimal, with drugs available to halt contractions.

The day following the surgery, as she was about to be discharged, Ann asked the nurse to check her one last time — and the nurse discovered Ann was almost fully dilated. Morphine had masked the labor pains overnight.

Minutes later, Ann was undergoing an emergency Cesarean-section, and the McNeils’ son, Jake Russell McNeil, was born on June 10 — 9-1/2 weeks early and weighing 3 pounds, 14 ounces.

Unable to breathe on his own, Jake soon was transferred to Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, the closest medical facility to house a Level III Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

“I was going back and forth, seeing how Ann was, seeing the baby,” Blaine said. “It was really scary for me, because every time I went back to see him, they had new tubes in him.”

After eight days, Jake was transferred out of NICU, but he had to remain at Children’s for another week while waiting for space to open up at a local special-care nursery. On June 26, Jake was transferred to Providence Everett Medical Center.

“When we finally got Jake moved to Everett, Ann could go (visit him) a lot more often and stay longer,” Blaine said. “I’d work and then spend an hour or hour and a half with Jake in Everett. At least our life was a little more civil, a little bit more manageable.”

When the couple had to drive back and forth to Seattle through congested traffic, while trying to take care of daughters Emmalee, now 5, and Jenna, now 3, life was chaotic, he recalled.

“Our lives were turned upside down,” Blaine said. “The move back to Everett was awesome.”

And thanks to a collaboration between Children’s and PEMC, Snohomish County families no longer have to commute to Seattle to find a Level III NICU. They now have such a facility — and the necessary expertise — in the Pavilion for Women and Children.

Through the collaboration, Children’s will provide management services and staffing for the NICU, including a neonatology medical director, neonatology physicians and onsite neonatal nurse practitioners, said Dr. Sandy Melzer, Vice President for Regional and Ambulatory Services at Children’s.

Children’s also will be providing a manager for the nursery and pediatric program, he said. “All in all, Children’s involvement in this program is quite extensive.”

The Children’s relationship is just one of many that PEMC has fostered to bring first-rate health care for women and children into one building.

In May 2000, Providence entered a contractual agreement with University of Washington Physicians to offer consultations with perinatology and genetic counseling specialists for expectant mothers with high-risk pregnancies. Those services now will be provided at the Pavilion.

Other health-care providers that will have a presence at the Pavilion include:

• Medalia Medical Group, a part of Providence, is relocating five physicians and a nurse practitioner from its Hoyt Avenue Women’s Clinic to the fifth floor of the Pavilion. These providers will offer both normal and high-risk obstetrical care before, during and after pregnancy, as well as women’s health exams and gynecological care.
• Providence Midwifery Care, a department of PEMC, will move from its Rockefeller facility to the Pacific Campus this summer, with patients delivering at the adjacent Pavilion.
• The Everett Clinic is leasing about 6,500 square feet of space on the fifth floor of the Pavilion to offer obstetrical and gynecological care, with six physicians, three nurse practitioners and “all their staff” moving from the clinic’s main campus on Hoyt Avenue, said Chief Operations Officer Mark Mantei.
• Through a contract with PEMC, Radia Medical Imaging is providing the professional services for the Pavilion’s Comprehensive Breast Center, including mammograms and breast ultrasounds.

Along with these entities, the physicians themselves, working together to create a high standard of care, are an important Pavilion partner, said Margot Connole, Director of PEMC’s Cancer Institute.

The Everett Clinic, Western Washington Medical Group and Radia have worked closely with PEMC to create that standard of care for the breast center, she said.

Patty Mitchell, Assistant Administrator for Strategic Development and Facilities Services at PEMC, agrees.

“Our local providers have been wonderful,” she said. “It’s through their hard work and collaboration with hospital staff that we will be able to provide the best care for women and children throughout Northwest Washington.”

And having them all under one roof, offering a medical office complex as part of an acute-care facility “is fairly unique,” Mitchell said.

“It’s convenient for not only patients but for the physicians,” she said, explaining that physicians can be involved in other medical services while some of their patients are being taken care of in the hospital — without having to move back and forth from office to hospital.

Back and forth — that’s something the McNeils know about firsthand. But as Jake closes in on his second birthday, having recently passed his physical with flying colors, it’s something the Snohomish family hopes it won’t have to do again.

And, now that the Pavilion is here, they know that they and other families in the county won’t have to make such long, time-consuming back-and-forth trips to get the first-class care they need.

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