Children’s Hospital of Orange County expects to see more than 50,000 patients a year at a new pediatric emergency room that will be the first of its kind here and bring a significant shift to the local landscape of medical care.
The pediatric emergency room—which last week received a $5 million contribution from local philanthropists Julia and George Argyros—is expected to open early next year as part of a $560 million South Tower that’s under construction as the centerpiece of a major expansion at CHOC’s campus in Orange.
CHOC currently contracts with adjacent St. Joseph Hospital-Orange for pediatric emergency services. St. Joseph’s parent, St. Joseph Health, is now working with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian on a plan to create a new company that would oversee a regional integrated healthcare network involving both entities.
The Julia and George Argyros Emergency Department at CHOC will have 22,000 square feet of space and 31 treatment rooms, including 14 rapid medical examination rooms, along with three triage suites.
CHOC expects there will be some 100 new jobs at the emergency room, including nurses and technicians.
About 65% to 70% of jobs are already filled and “a lot of them are coming from outside because we have to have a core that’s experienced,” said Frank Maas, the hospital’s emergency department director.
ER Doctors
CHOC contracts with the Emergency Medicine Specialists of Orange County, a medical group for emergency room doctors.
Pediatric emergency doctors from the group will move from St. Joseph to CHOC when the South Tower opens.
“They currently also care for the (pediatric) patients at St. Joseph’s emergency department, so we’ll have kind of a continuum of care between the two,” Maas said.
The addition of a pediatric emergency room puts CHOC on par in that area of care with Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, and Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, which is owned by Fountain Valley-based MemorialCare Health System.
CHOC’s new emergency room is “sort of dedicated and environmentally set up to deal with pediatric patients,” said Maas, who counts prior experience in similar roles at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, and others.
Not every pediatric emergency specialty will be covered at CHOC.
Trauma cases will continue to be handled at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center and Mission Hospital’s Mission Viejo campus, which is part of St. Joseph Health. CHOC has a small satellite hospital known as “CHOC at Mission” on the latter campus (see related story, “Regulators Include OC Hospital in Review of Non-Profits’ Status,” page 1).
Hospital executives aren’t ruling the possibility of trauma care in the future. Maas said CHOC could add such service “at some point in time.”
The 425,000-square-foot South Tower also will host laboratory, pathology and radiology services that CHOC will now handle on its own rather than through contracts with third parties, said hospital spokesperson Denise Almazan. The tower also will add 28 more hematology/oncology beds.
Almazan said bringing such services in house is part of the hospital’s strategic plan.
CHOC executives “decided in order to become a nationally recognized premier children’s hospital, we had to provide all of our services with a dedicated pediatric focus,” Almazan said.
The $5 million gift from the Argyroses came from their Costa Mesa-based Argyros Family Foundation, and is part of CHOC’s campaign for the South Tower.
It’s the latest in a long line of support the family has given the hospital. Julia Argyros and local public relations executive Gloria Zigner established the CHOC Follies fundraising event some 15 years ago. The family also is involved with the CHOC Cherishes Children fundraising gala.
“We have been very close to CHOC for many, many years,” Julia Argyros said in an interview last week.
“Instigator”
She credited daughter Stephanie, who serves on the board of CHOC Children’s Foundation, as the “instigator in really getting this grant established” for the pediatric emergency room.
“Being young, she’s had a lot of her friends who have spent time at CHOC and began to clearly see the need … that they needed their own emergency room,” Julia Argyros said.
The Argyros family has been involved in the South Tower project since its early days, including giving $1 million toward its establishment in 2009 through the Change CHOC, Change the World campaign, which has raised about $120 million to date.
The tower’s waiting room will be known as the Stephanie A. Argyros Reception Area.
“We believe providing the highest-quality healthcare to Orange County’s children is a community imperative,” Stephanie Argyros said, adding that her son, niece and nephew have been patients in the past.
Family patriarch George Argyros is No. 8 on the Business Journal’s recent list of wealthiest county residents, with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion, most of it derived from real estate. He and his family have been deeply involved in philanthropy over the years. He’s also a major contributor to Chapman University in Orange, where the business school, student center and Argyros Forum bear his name.
