Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian’s $84 million transformation of the former Irvine Regional Hospital into Hoag Hospital Irvine remains on schedule.
Hoag Irvine will take its first patients in late summer or early fall, said Robert Braithwaite, the facility’s chief administrative officer.
The hospital started its makeover early last year after then operator Tenet Healthcare Corp. closed the facility.
Dallas-based Tenet, which has been downsizing in Orange County, decided to shutter Irvine Regional after coming to a legal settlement with landlord HCP Inc., a healthcare real estate investor based in Long Beach.
Hoag Hospital’s renovation includes new operating rooms, nursing floors and imaging equipment, as well as rebuilt patient rooms, pre- and post-surgery recovery areas and space for advanced medical technologies.
The hospital will contain 154 beds, all in private rooms.
“We’ve pretty much finished 90% of the demolition,” Braithwaite said.
Some new walls have started going up in the facility.
“Some of the new technologies in healthcare really require different facility configurations,” he said.
For example, Hoag Irvine will feature larger operating rooms and radiology areas to accommodate the machines.
Hoag Irvine will contain some specialty offerings, particularly in orthopedics and sports medicine.
Orthopedics is seen as growing field for Hoag, which has an overflow of patients at its main campus in Newport Beach. The hospital only expects that to increase as baby boomers get older and seek age-related surgeries such as hip replacements.
Hoag also plans to extend its Hoag Heart and Vascular Institute to the Irvine facility, with a particular emphasis on services delivered through catheters and electric devices, such as defibrillators.
Irvine’s population swells to about 300,000 during the day and “it needs a cardiac service,” Braithwaite said.
But Hoag Irvine will not have a maternity ward.
“That’s one service that we will not duplicate on that campus,” Braithwaite said.
The Irvine hospital only delivered about 40 babies a month under Tenet, a historically low volume, while the Bill and Sue Gross Women’s Pavilion on Hoag’s main campus on average delivers 40 babies every 36 hours.
Hoag officials felt that trying to duplicate a maternity ward with such a low birthrate in Irvine “probably is not the best use of resources,” Braithwaite said.
The renovations look to be on budget—if not under—as building materials are coming in at lower prices than expected, Braithwaite said. The difference has allowed the hospital to renovate more than expected, he said.
Most of the $84 million is coming from Hoag’s earnings and investments, Braithwaite said.
Hoag Irvine’s renovation doesn’t include much seismic work. Braithwaite noted that 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 hospital is being marketed heavily. Braithwaite said it’s done some 50 presentations about it to groups such as local homeowners’ associations. The campaign also includes newsletters and will soon have cable television advertisements.
The expansion is meant to target Irvine residents, who had been traveling to the Newport Beach campus, according to Braithwaite.
Hoag’s takeover of the Irvine facility knocked out plans for an expansion in Newport Beach, Chief Executive Richard Afable has said.
“There was no need for us to spend what was then a $390 million investment,” Afable said.
Hoag is operating Hoag Irvine on the same license as its core hospital.
It does face some competition.
Kaiser Permanente, an Oakland-based not-for-profit that also operates OC’s largest health maintenance organization, opened a big hospital across the street at Sand Canyon Avenue and Alton Parkway in 2008. The former Irvine Regional previously cared for Kaiser’s overflow patients.
