An Irvine hospital is readying to reopen after an $85 million, year-plus renovation.
The former Irvine Regional Hospital and Medical Center is in the final stages of a makeover by Newport Beach’s Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.
In early 2009, Hoag Memorial took over the hospital from longtime operator Tenet Healthcare Corp. of Dallas. The hospital’s been closed for renovations since then and is set to reopen as Hoag Hospital Irvine in September.
The move is an expansion for Hoag, already Orange County’s largest hospital by revenue. The Irvine hospital is set to reopen with 154 beds, in addition to Hoag’s 498 beds in Newport Beach.
An emergency room and other basics are staying at Hoag Hospital Irvine. But the facility is being redone as something of a specialty hospital with a focus on orthopedics and other practices.
About half of the hospital’s beds are designed for orthopedic patients.
The area’s aging population brought the focus to orthopedics, said Robert Braithwaite, Hoag Irvine’s chief administrative officer.
“There’s a lot more arthritis, a lot more worn-out knees, a lot more worn-out hips and shoulders,” he said.
From now to 2030, a projected 600% increase in joint replacement surgeries is expected across the country as baby boomers age.
Hoag’s orthopedic program in Newport Beach is full, with some patients having to wait weeks to have procedures done.
Hoag Hospital Irvine’s focus on specialties is part of a trend, said Mitch Morris, a principal in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s life sciences and healthcare practice in Costa Mesa.
Hospitals that do a lot of special procedures “tend to be better at it,” he said.
Larger operating rooms designed to accommodate robotics and other surgical devices are part of the renovation.
The operating rooms include a “sterile field” designed to cut down on infections, a big area of concern in the effort to contain rising healthcare costs.
Hoag Hospital Irvine is set to open with seven operating rooms and expand to 11 by year’s end, Braithwaite said.
The surgery department includes an “induction” area where patients receive anesthesia prior to surgery.
Cardiac services, including a heart catheterization lab for angioplasty and other procedures, are a big part of the facility. Irvine “needs a cardiac service” since a large influx of people come to the city during the workday, Braithwaite said.
Much of Hoag Hospital Irvine’s heart services are clustered near its emergency department, which has 14 beds, up from 11 under former operator Tenet Healthcare.
Hoag Hospital Irvine built its heart catheter lab in space previously used for medical records. The space was freed up with a move to electronic medical records, according to Braithwaite.
Hoag Hospital Irvine doesn’t expect to treat everyone.
Patients with severe head wounds or who need open-heart surgery will be sent to the main campus, Braithwaite said.
And there’s no maternity ward. The hospital wasn’t big in babies before, delivering about 40 a month.
The Bill and Sue Gross Women’s Pavilion at Hoag’s Newport Beach campus delivers 40 babies every three days on average.
The strategy of splitting up specialties—women’s health and others in Newport Beach, orthopedics and others in Irvine—“makes a lot of sense,” Deloitte’s Morris said.
Hoag Hospital Irvine also has a 12-bed intensive care unit, a medical laboratory, an auditorium that’s wired for online presentations and downloadable podcasts, a pharmacy and about 1,750 parking spaces.
Financing
Hoag financed the renovation through its “balance sheet” rather than borrowing, said Braithwaite, a Brigham Young University and Arizona State University alumnus who has been with Hoag nearly 15 years.
General contracting work was done by Miles & Kelley Construction Co. of Fullerton and San Diego-based Roel Construction Co.
Taylor, a Newport Beach architectural firm, did the interior work.
The renovation was divided into 13 segments, which helped speed up approval from the California Office of Statewide Hospital Planning and Development, Braithwaite said.
With the construction downturn, Hoag Hospital Irvine’s materials costs came in lower than expected, he said. It used the savings to pay for extras, including a new roof and added landscaping.
Hoag Irvine’s renovation doesn’t include much seismic work. Braithwaite said the facility, which originally opened in 1990, satisfies a California law that requires that by 2030 most hospitals must be able to remain operational after a major earthquake.
The Irvine hospital, which has 244,000 square feet on its campus, plans to open with 800 workers, 40% of whom are transferring from Newport Beach.
Hoag Irvine has received about 72,000 applications and is getting about 6,000 a month, Braithwaite said.
Besides hiring and preparing the hospital, Hoag Irvine has been introducing itself to area businesses.
Hospital officials have met with the executive team of Vizio Inc., an Irvine seller of flat TVs, according to Braithwaite.
“They’re an Irvine-based company and they want to be part of this institution,” Braithwaite said.
Vizio donated 30 TVs to the hospital.
Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente has a large hospital across the street from Hoag Hospital Irvine. But Kaiser, which serves enrollees in its own health insurance plan, isn’t a competitor for Hoag Irvine.
The renovation of the Irvine hospital came instead of an expansion in Newport Beach, according to Hoag Chief Executive Richard Afable.
Hoag Irvine could get bigger. There is room for a five-story building to be built on the site of what’s now a parking lot, Braithwaite said.
