Richard Afable starts as chief executive of Newport Beach’s Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian with a shiny new addition,the $200 million Sue and Bill Gross Women’s Pavilion.
The seven-story building, set to open next week, is the first piece of a 10-year expansion planned for the hospital, which typically ranks No. 1 or No. 2 among Orange County hospitals by net patient revenue.
Afable and other Hoag officials, along with representatives of the pavilion’s contractor and architectural firm, showed off the facility earlier this month.
Finishing touches, including new furniture, still were in the works.
“Research tells us that there’s a direct link between the way a hospital is designed and patient health and quality of care,” Afable said about the building.
The pavilion was designed to reduce anxiety and stress among patients, according to Afable, who recently took over as Hoag’s boss.
The facility has more than 130 private rooms, including some facing the ocean. Other features include a breast center with direct-to-digital mammography, an ambulatory surgery center, a more open neonatal intensive care unit and a postpartum area with couplet care, where a newborn rooms with mom.
The Newport Beach office of St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Cos. built the pavilion. Taylor and Associates AIA, also of Newport Beach, designed the facility. Construction cost $129 million.
Hospital officials said they are looking for a domino effect from the pavilion’s opening. Several departments and services are moving in, freeing space within Hoag’s existing hospital tower.
Then Hoag plans to expand and modernize its emergency care unit and radiology department.
Later this year, Hoag is going to start leveling its lower campus in order to relocate its childcare center and build an additional outpatient services building and parking structure.
As for the pavilion, Hoag has touted its fund-raising efforts for the facility,more than $72 million, which surpassed an early goal of $50 million set by the Hoag Hospital Foundation.
The Grosses gave the largest individual gift,leading to the pavilion bearing their name. Bill Gross is a founder and chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., the country’s largest bond fund manager and a unit of German insurer Allianz AG.
HealthData Gets Funding
HealthDataInsights Inc., a Las Vegas-based company with an office in Newport Beach, said it raised $13.2 million in venture funding.
GRP Partners, an investment firm with offices in Los Angeles and London, led the funding, with Ticonderoga Capital of Wellesley, Mass., and Menlo Park, and existing investor Redhills Ventures LLC in Las Vegas.
HealthDataInsights works with healthcare payers, third-party administrators and self-insured corporations, to analyze medical insurance claims and to identify and recover overpayments resulting from error, as well as fraud and abuse.
HealthDataInsights has raised some $25 million in all. The company was created in 2004 with the combination of Integrated Healthcare Solutions in Newport Beach and HealthMarketInsights of Las Vegas.
Radiation Buys Sites, Ups Credit
OnCure Medical Corp. of Newport Beach bought two radiation cancer treatment centers in Anaheim and Fountain Valley for an undisclosed price from the Radiation Oncology Medical Group of Southern California Inc.
OnCure, which runs and manages 18 radiation centers in California and Florida, said it plans to invest some $2.5 million in radiation treatment gear.
The company, which has some 300 workers, doesn’t own doctor practices or control how medical services are provided at its centers. Instead, it provides capital, technology and management services to affiliated doctor groups.
Separately, OnCure said that it expanded its financing with Merrill Lynch Capital to $22.5 million from $15 million.
UCI Stem Cell Research
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine’s Reeve-Irvine Research Center have used adult neural stem cells to regenerate damaged spinal cord tissue and improve mobility in mice.
Brian Cummings, Aileen Anderson and their colleagues injected stem cells into mice with limited mobility caused by spinal cord injuries. Those cells then changed into new cells that restored myelin, a nerve-fiber insulating substance.
Myelin is critical to maintaining electrical conduction in the central nervous system. If myelin’s stripped away through disease or injury, sensory and motor deficiencies result. In some cases, paralysis occurs.
The finding could lead to the usage of stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries.
StemCells Inc., a Palo Alto company, provided stem cells used in the study. Funding came from the National Institutes of Health and the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
Results appeared online in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
Bits and Pieces:
In other UCI news, a bid is under way to create an endowed chair with at least $1.5 million to honor James McGaugh, founder of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. The chair would be held for five years by a UCI professor who also is a center fellow. The center, founded in 1981, is considered the first research institute dedicated to the study of brain mechanisms that allow people to acquire, retain and use memories Robert Dillman, medical director of Hoag Cancer Center, Newport Beach, co-authored a study that showed services offered by what are called “comprehensive community cancer centers” are directly related to improved survival rates among cancer patients.
