McCarthy Tapped to Build Women’s Pavilion at Hoag
PacifiCare Touts Turnaround, Thanks to Commercial HMO Gains, Cost Cutting
HEALTHCARE by Vita Reed
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Newport Beach, has picked the local office of McCarthy Building Cos. as the builder of its $50 million Women’s Pavilion project.
St. Louis-based Mc-Carthy plans to start building in September and expects to have some 400 workers on the project, said Steve Mynsberge, vice president of health care services for McCarthy’s California division who works out of Newport Beach. The pavilion is set to open in 2005.
McCarthy has done similar projects, according to Mynsberge. The building would be what’s called a “base isolated” structure,a type of construction that is designed to make the facility safer during a big earthquake.
The pavilion is set to have columns between the foundation and structural steel that will allow lateral movement from 30 inches in any direction during an earthquarke. The design aims to minimize damage to the building and its contents.
McCarthy has worked for Hoag before, doing seven other jobs for the hospital, including a 455-space parking structure near the pavilion.
Taylor & Associates AIA, Newport Beach, is the architect for the pavilion, which calls for seven stories. Upon opening, the pavilion’s set to offer a range of programs and services for women. They include a maternity unit with 49 private rooms, 18 labor, delivery and recovery suites, a 21-bassinet neonatal intensive care unit, a seven-bedroom antepartum unit and a fetal diagnostics area.
Outpatient services are set to include birthing facilities, an area for high-risk delivery care, an osteoporosis clinic, a continence center, a perimenopausal clinic and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Hoag Breast Care and Imaging Center.
The pavilion is the first major expansion of Hoag’s upper campus in more than 25 years. When it opens, it stands to double the hospital’s clinical space, officials said.
“We really need attention to women’s health issues,” said Ginny Ueberroth, co-chairwoman of a fund-raising drive for the pavilion, during an interview last year. In particular, Ueberroth noted that Hoag’s maternity facilities needed to be expanded because of crowding.
Hoag Hospital Foundation, meanwhile, has been working hard to raise funds for the pavilion. Last month, the hospital received a $5 million gift from the A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation for building the structure. The pavilion’s fifth floor will be named in recognition of the Anderson foundation gift.
Hoag’s campaign, led by Ueberroth, Arden Flamson and Sandy Sewell, has raised some $48 million toward a $50 million goal in two and a half years, according to the hospital.
McCarthy said it is providing pre-construction or building services for nearly $900 million in healthcare facilities across Southern California.
Besides work for Hoag, McCarthy has done work for Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center, Fountain Valley, and several Kaiser Permanente projects, including an office building in Yorba Linda.
Phanstiel: Things Improving
PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., the Santa Ana-based managed care company, has been working to rebuild its business.
In published reports, PacifiCare Chief Executive Howard Phanstiel recently said the company is about halfway through a turnaround plan designed to revitalize its profitability and restore investor confidence.
PacifiCare’s improved profits are mainly coming about because of its commercial HMO business, Phanstiel said during a company-sponsored investor meeting covered by Dow Jones Newswires.
“I believe we have made significant progress. From now on, it is a brand new day at PacifiCare,” he said.
PacifiCare has cut costs, left unprofitable markets and significantly boosted its premium rates in a bid to improve its earnings and margins. PacifiCare also has decreased its dependency on Medicare, which once made up about 60% of its business.
Before taking an $897 million charge to cover impaired goodwill from past acquisitions, PacifiCare reported earnings of $30.1 million in the first quarter ended March 31, up from $6.9 million in year-ago quarter.
Bits and Pieces:
Orange County Health Care Agency, Santa Ana, is presenting a children’s healthcare access initiative conference June 27 at Doubletree Hotel in Orange. Scheduled topics include presenting the agency’s countywide strategic pediatric healthcare plan, the future of healthcare, emerging trends and best practices, along with school strategies Anaheim Memorial Medical Center, one of three local hospitals owned by Memorial Health Services, Long Beach, recently opened a new heart catheterization laboratory. The new laboratory features Innova, an all-digital cardiovascular X-ray imaging system that hospital officials say is one of the few systems of its kind in Southern California I-Flow Corp., Lake Forest, said its On-Q postoperative pain relief system and Soaker catheter now are being offered through Private Healthcare Systems Inc., Waltham, Mass., one of the country’s larger preferred-provider organization networks.
