Published May 2002

PEMC embarks on site plan

By John Wolcott
Herald Business Journal Editor

The new $56 million Pavilion for Women and Children opening this month is the latest — and most expensive — capital project in a long list of Providence Health System facilities in Snohomish County, but it won’t be the last expansion venture for Snohomish County’s largest health-care provider.

Providence Everett Medical Center’s investment in the Pavilion is part of a continually evolving 20-year Master Site Plan reaching out to 2020, a two-decade blueprint for meeting future demands for quality, state-of-the-art health-care services for a growing Snohomish County population.

According to the 2000 Census, the number of county residents increased from 265,236 in 1970 to 465,628 in the 20 years ending in 1990, expanding to 606,024 in 2000 — an increase of 340,788 people over the past three decades.

“We’re re-doing the master site plan as we speak because we know that some time, perhaps soon, this facility (on the Colby Campus) will need to be replaced. The question is do we do it in pieces on this site or other sites we own, or do we try to do it in College Plaza … (the 17-acre, north Everett shopping center recently purchased by the medical center), which we now call our Broadway Campus,” said PEMC chief executive Gail Larson.

The medical center is already preparing to move non-essential hospital services such as medical records and radiology film storage, financial analysis, some outpatient programs and some support services to the former Best retail building at the north end of the shopping center. If the shopping center is developed into a major new campus for the medical center, the present 8-acre Colby Campus could become home to a different realm of health-care needs, perhaps a long-term skilled nursing or assisted living facility for senior citizens.

“We’re struggling with planning what our future campus will really look like,” mused Patty Mitchell, PEMC’s Assistant Administrator for Strategic Development and Facilities Services. “We’re reviewing our assumptions in the 2000 master site plan and making the best decisions we can with the latest information. The 2000 Census information has really helped us out. North Everett is going to fundamentally change, and I think that’s a good thing.”

Providing needed health-care services has been a 150-year tradition in the Pacific Northwest for the Sisters of Providence, a heritage that began in 1856 when Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart and four other Sisters of Providence arrived at Fort Vancouver, Wash.

In 1905 the order bought Everett’s Monte Cristo Hotel for $50,000 to establish Providence Hospital with 75 beds and a staff of 11 Sisters and three employees, treating more than 400 patients in the first year. In 1923, a $200,000 hospital with 126 beds was added east of the hotel site. By 1962, the hospital facilities were inadequate for serving the area’s growth, spurring a $14.5 million reconstruction project and a new service wing for obstetrics, radiology and dietary services.

Exactly 100 years after the 1894 founding of Everett’s first hospital — Everett General — the two health-care centers merged to become Providence General Medical Center, part of the Sisters of Providence Health System. In 2000 the name was changed to Providence Everett Medical Center, which was developing into a regional referral center serving patients from Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, Island and San Juan counties.

In recent years, the medical center also established a Mill Creek Campus to serve south Snohomish County and began operating Medalia Medical Group, a regional network of nine clinics staffed by more than 65 primary care providers, including physicians, advanced practice registered nurses, and physician assistants. With the opening of the Pavilion for Women and Children will also come the expansion of PEMC’s inpatient bed capacity at the Colby Campus, in space vacated by services moving to the Pavilion. The expansion will include 15 new single-stay cardiac surgery critical care beds and more than 60 additional telemetry beds to serve the needs of the growing community and the physicians who work here.

Currently, the combined full-time-equivalent staff for PEMC’s three campuses, Home Care and Hospice, and Medalia primary care clinics totals about 2,550 people, with a $153 million payroll for a nonprofit business that grosses $600 million a year in billings. The new Pavilion will add a net gain of 170 FTE employees. Altogether, the PEMC health-care network serves more than 100,000 patients a year.

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