Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian is three-quarters of the way toward its goal of raising $50 million for a planned 309,000-square-foot, eight-story women’s pavilion on its Newport Beach campus.
The hospital has raised $37 million since launching the capital campaign in October, said Ginny Ueberroth, co-chairwoman of the hospital’s fund-raising drive and wife of businessman Peter Ueberroth.
Initial underground construction on the women’s pavilion is set to start this fall. Ueberroth said the structure won’t be “seeing brick” until next year.
“We’re getting our final plan check from the state,” she said.
Hoag’s new women’s facility is expected to start taking patients at the end of 2004. Its projected cost is $100 million, with reserves and bond funds making up the difference.
“We’re asking the community to support half of this,” said Debra Legan, a hospital spokeswoman.
The planned pavilion is the first major expansion of Hoag’s upper campus in more than 25 years and stands to double its clinical space, according to hospital officials.
As the capital campaign nears its goal, Ueberroth said, hospital officials may consider expanding the fund-raising drive. Some donors have expressed interest in funding the Hoag Heart Institute, another clinical program, she said. Donors include local businesses, residents and foundations, said Jim Dale, the hospital foundation’s acting executive director.
The Hoag Hospital Foundation is handling the pavilion campaign. Ueberroth and fellow foundation directors Arden Flamson and Sandy Sewell are heading up the effort. William S. Thompson Jr., chief executive of Pacific Investment Management Co., or PIMCO, is the foundation board’s chairman.
Ueberroth said the foundation has been able to tap prior Hoag benefactors. Officials also have been working to drum up new support. They’ve held luncheons and other functions where campaign members have met with potential donors, Ueberroth said. She noted that those activities have included Hoag’s Dr. Stephanie McClellan, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist who also is a pavilion medical adviser.
Hoag’s approach encompasses giving women patients a voice in what types of healthcare they want, according to McClellan. Unlike a decade ago, women have become “very knowledgeable and demanding about what they want from healthcare and how it should be delivered,” she said.
When Hoag’s Women’s Pavilion is built, it will add around 100 beds and have a range of programs and services geared toward female patients. They’ll encompass birthing facilities, an area for high-risk delivery care, an osteoporosis clinic, a continence center, a perimenopausal clinic and the Hoag Breast Care and Imaging Center.
“We really need attention to women’s health issues,” Ueberroth said.
In particular, Ueberroth said, Hoag’s maternity facilities need expansion because of crowding. A total of 42 maternity rooms, more than double the hospital’s current capacity, are coming in the expansion. Maternity services also include a 24-hour obstetric presence and neonatal care at night.
“Also in the center, we’re going to have specialists in osteoporosis and continence issues,” Ueberroth said. “Some of our doctors say that incontinence is one of older women’s key problems.”
Hoag’s women’s pavilion campaign fits the hospital’s general fund-raising goals, according to Legan. Specifically, the hospital’s philanthropic efforts are geared toward capital improvements and equipment purchases, in order to make sure that operating income goes into patient care, she said.
“We’ve not crossed into fund raising to offset operating income,” Legan said.
Legan said she is worried about a softening economy putting a damper on the hospital’s fund-raising. She noted that the hospital has seen some slowdown in activity from people who donate assets, specifically stocks. n
