A Transition Anniversary

One year ago staff and physicians were busy making history – literally moving the only burn and Level 1 trauma center within the region’s 15,000 square-mile service area to downtown Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center from the former University Medical Center.

Today, Community Regional is the only true academic regional medical center in the Fresno area and houses the state’s second busiest emergency department. Many hospitals have emergency rooms, but only a select number provide the range of expertise of a Level 1 trauma center.

“You have to have CT scans available 24 hours a day. You have to have X-ray services, IR, interventional labs, cath labs, you have to have access to all of the things from the lowest level of acuity to the highest level of acuity and it has to be ready to go 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” said Bruce Kinder, Community’s vice president for academic affairs who was project manager of the UMC move. “And it’s a fun and exciting environment to be in.”

Last year’s three-day move from April 16 to 18 included transporting 68 of the hospital’s most critical patients by ambulance from one facility to another. It took months of planning, coordinating and rehearsing behind the scenes before the patient move could actually be performed. And now that it has, there still hasn’t been any time to rest as Community Medical Centers embarked on several more projects.

On the regional medical center campus, groundbreaking is scheduled in June for Terry’s House, a two-story, hotel-like facility to house the families of patients while their loved ones receive critical care. Terry’s House, to be located on the corner of Fresno and R streets, will be within walking distance from the main entrance to Community Regional. Community Medical Foundation is working to raise $3 million for construction and $7 million for an endowment to operate and sustain the facility.

Other projects coming soon at the downtown hospital include a new four-story, 88,000-square-foot medical office building and a six-story parking structure to be completed by spring 2009. Construction is already under way, with the two projects taking up the entire city block of Thesta Street between Divisadero and Illinois avenues on the west side of the UCSF Fresno building.

A new clinical laboratory, featuring leading-edge technology, opened at Community Regional in December. The new lab boasts 18,000 square feet, compared with 7,500 in its previous location.

Also in December, Community Regional opened its 52-bed neuroscience unit. Located on the ninth floor, the unit is dedicated to such conditions as brain injuries, brain tumors, back problems, stroke and epilepsy. And in May, cardiac services will expand with a dedicated unit on the eighth floor.

While Community Regional continues to blossom into one of the premier medical facilities in the state, big plans are being executed at Clovis Community Medical Center as well. In October, Clovis Community is scheduled to break ground on its $20 million first phase of an expansion master plan.

The first phase calls for a two-story, 22,500-square-foot add-on to the outpatient care facility, including expansion of the Marjorie E. Radin Breast Care Center and the hospital’s Level 3 in-vitro fertilization center, the only one of its kind between Los Angeles and Sacramento.

“We have had a 45% surgical volume growth over the past two years,” Clovis Community CEO Craig Castro said. “This expansion brings top facilities and leading-edge equipment and treatment to better serve our patients.”

Another expansion project is well under way at Fresno Heart & Surgical Center, where in mid-August construction began to add two advanced-technology, minimally-invasive operating suites, a 144-seat education center and more space and beds to the surgery recovery area. Project completion is scheduled for September.

All in all, the slogan used at Community during the 2007 hospital move has never been more true than it is now – “Bigger than ever, stronger together.”

This story was reported by Eddie Hughes. He can be reached at eddieh@communitymedical.org.

Friday, April 18, 2008