A new $25 million pavilion is coming into the homestretch at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center and is set to open for emergency and critically ill patients next year.
Saddleback Memorial’s new pavilion counts 55,000 square feet of space and is on the southwest side of the Laguna Hills hospital. The two-story facility is near the hospital’s existing emergency and critical care areas. Barry Arbuckle, the hospital’s chief executive, said he expects the new pavilion to start taking patients in June.
“This will allow us to grow our volume and frequency of hospital visits, and it will last a good number of years,” Arbuckle said.
The critical care pavilion is “100% philanthropically funded, led by a lead gift,” Arbuckle said. When built, the facility is set to be called the Meiklejohn Critical Care Pavilion, for Leisure World philanthropists William and Louise Meiklejohn, who provided the lead donation.
South County’s growing population and the aging of the baby boomers prompted the hospital addition, Arbuckle said.
Saddleback Memorial, like other South County hospitals, often has had to divert patients to other facilities because of a lack of capacity, according to Arbuckle.
“In South County, you have such significant population growth but relatively few hospitals,” he said.
Questar Engineering Inc. of Newport Beach is building the pavilion. Jim Salomon, a Questar principal, said the pavilion’s design dates back to four years ago. Construction began in March 2000.
Saddleback Memorial’s pavilion will meet state seismic standards and feature a medical helicopter pad, Arbuckle said.
The pavilion’s emergency care center has two patient treatment units. The emergency center is set to treat seriously ill and injured patients, while an urgent care center is for patients who have less serious medical problems.
Features of Saddleback Memorial’s emergency care center include 14 monitored beds, seven private urgent care examination rooms, a trauma and resuscitation room, a radiology suite, a nine-bed attached observation unit, and two rooms for obstetrics/gynecological or pediatric patients.
The new emergency care center is set to have 15,000 square feet of space, vs. the current 6,000 square feet now devoted to emergency care.
Saddleback Memorial has said that increasing its emergency capabilities would increase annual visits by 30% during a five-year period to more than 30,000 visits a year. Arbuckle said that the space for emergencies will increase 300% with the expansion project.
Saddleback’s new critical care unit is set to contain 15,000 square feet of space and 22 beds, as compared to the current 5,000 square feet and 14 beds. Other features of the unit include four isolation rooms and a room for doctors to consult with patients’ families.
Hospital officials have projected that Saddleback Memorial’s critical care census will increase by 40% in five years because of the additional capacity. But Arbuckle said the hospital hasn’t yet decided on a specific number of new jobs to be filled.
“We’re working on that. It depends on what the volume does,” he said. “When you open an ER, you get a flood of nurses and clinicians because (it’s) the newest, most advanced.”
The pavilion won’t end construction at the hospital. There are plans to build a multistory parking structure on Saddleback Memorial’s campus, according to Arbuckle.
Saddleback Memorial, which has 235 total beds, ranked No. 9 on the Business Journal’s most recent annual hospital list. According to the list, Saddleback Memorial posted a net income from operations of $2.2 million on net patient revenue of $102.8 million in 2000.
Saddleback Memorial is one of three OC hospitals owned by Memorial Health Services, a non-profit healthcare provider based in Long Beach. The others are Anaheim Memorial Medical Center, Anaheim, and Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley. n
