Kootenai Health, the Coeur dAlene-based hospital system that operates Kootenai Medical Center, projects in its recently completed strategic plan that it will spend at least $55 million to expand and renovate facilities in Coeur dAlene and go ahead with construction of a planned cancer center at its Post Falls campus.


The projects in the nine-year plan include a roughly $30 million child and maternal health center; a cardiovascular intensive-care unit; a roughly $15 million support-services building; and a roughly $10 million cancer center in Post Falls.


Kootenai Health has talked previously about building the cancer center and support building, but more details about those planned projects have emerged in the strategic plan.


Combined, the $55 million in projects represents the largest spate of construction work the hospital district will have undertaken since building KMCs current main hospital building in 1984, says Kootenai Health CEO Joe Morris.


Last year, Kootenai Health adopted a master plan, which was separate from the strategic plan and which focused on creating a theme for the 36-acre Coeur dAlene campuss appearance and on figuring out where more buildings could be constructed there over the next 20 years, Morris says. Earlier this year, Kootenai Health worked with Sg2, a Chicago-based firm that specializes in hospital planning, to develop an expansion strategy for meeting specific clinical needs based on projections of Kootenai Countys growth between now and 2016, Morris says.


Being in a growing area, we need to stay ahead of the curve, he says. Thats why we spend an inordinate amount of time looking at our future volume and capacity needs and identifying projects that address those specific needs.


Kootenai Health and Sg2 first looked at projected hospital patient volumes in the next nine years by taking into account factors such as the countys population growth, the number of uninsured in the area, technological advancements, health-care trends, and the aging baby boomer demographic, Morris says. Kootenai Health anticipates that Kootenai Countys population will grow 30 percent by 2016, and that the fastest-growing demographic will be people over age 65.


It expects hospital admissions will grow 25 percent, and outpatient volume will increase 39 percent during that time, he says.


Growth in the elderly patient population will put a particular strain on services such as cardiovascular, orthopedics, and oncology, he says. As a result, Kootenai Health is focusing on increasing the capacities of those departments.


As an example of heightened demand in those departments, Kootenai Health started offering cardiac services in 2003, and its volumes this year for heart surgery have grown 19 percent and are expected to continue to climb.


Its a puzzle. The creative part is figuring out what projects we can put in place to cost-effectively address the needs rather than build a brand-new hospital, Morris says. We keep pulling rabbits out of the hat.


Part of the puzzle involves moving the hospitals obstetrics, pediatric, and nursery departments. A record 1,650 babies were born in the Kootenai Birthing Center last year, and the numbers this year are on pace to beat that record, says Kootenai Health spokeswoman Kim Anderson. Kootenai Health plans to build the $30 million child and maternal health center on the KMC campus both to meet future demand for those services and to free up space those departments currently are taking in the main hospital so that other clinical services can be expanded there, Morris says.


The new center would include pediatrics, labor and delivery, and post-partum departments, and a nursery, he says. Some womens surgical procedures might also be performed there. Current plans call for constructing two floors of the new center on top of an older, one-level building located adjacent to the northwest side of the main hospital building, at 2003 Lincoln Way. The two new floors would have a combined total of about 45,000 square feet of space, he says.


Pediatrics currently is located on the third floor of the main hospital building, next to the 20-bed progressive-care unit, Morris says. Once pediatrics moves, the progressive unit will be able to expand to 30 beds and accommodate the patients who will move up from the coronary-care unit as a result of the reshuffling the hospital plans to do in its intensive-care unit. The post-partum unit currently shares a wing on the second floor with orthopedics and neurosurgery, so once it moves, those departments can expand. The nursery and labor and delivery unit are located next to surgical suites and after they move, the hospital will add two or three more surgical rooms in the vacated space, he says.


Kootenai Health hopes to start that $30 million project next June and complete it by October of 2009, Morris says. Bouten Construction Co., of Spokane, is the construction manager, and NAC/Architecture designed the project, he says.


KMCs intensive-care unit, which includes patients who are recovering after open-heart surgery, is the department where the hospital has felt the biggest bed crunch lately, Morris says. The 14-bed ICU unit is located on the hospitals second floor, where cardiovascular surgery is performed. Once cardiovascular (CV) ICU patients are well enough, theyre transferred to the coronary-care unit on the hospitals third floor.


To free up room in the ICU, the coronary-care unit will be remodeled so that it can support CV ICU patients, and the ICU unit will be remodeled as well, he says. The hospital will shift some of the coronary-care unit patients to its progressive unit, which takes care of patients who arent in critical condition. It hopes to start the remodeling project early next year and wrap it up by the end of 2008. NAC/Architecture, of Spokane, is the architect for that project, but a contractor hasnt been selected yet, Morris says. It doesnt have a cost estimate ready to release yet, he says.


Kootenai Health currently is installing a $1 million, extra-large elevator between the second and third floors of KMCs main building so that open-heart surgery patients can be transported directly from the surgery area to the CV ICU unit on the third floor, he says.


Support services


Kootenai Health also hopes to start constructing a new support-services building just west of the main hospital building next June and to wrap it up by June of 2009, Morris says. The three-story, roughly 45,000-square-foot structure will accommodate Kootenai Healths business and accounting offices, community relations department, security operations, and human-resources department, he says. It also will house some medical records, and likely will have 8,000 square feet of vacant space on the third floor to use as additional support-services space or physician office space in the future.


Coeur dAlene architect John Eixenberger is designing the project, and Bouten Construction will be the construction manager.


That new building will allow Kootenai Health to consolidate its support-services operations, some of which currently operate at off-site locations, and also will create room in the main hospital building for radiology, infusion therapy, and outpatient treatment services to expand into the vacated space, Morris says. Demand for those services is increasing, and theyve outgrown their current spaces, he says.


Meanwhile, Kootenai Health plans to break ground next spring on a previously announced, two-story, 18,000-square-foot cancer-care clinic at its Post Falls Health Park, Morris says. The center, to be located in the eastern half of the 10-acre site, at 1300 E. Mullan, is expected to be completed in May of 2009, he says. Contractors Northwest Inc., of Coeur dAlene, is the construction manager for the project, and Coeur dAlene architects Rann Haight and Roy Marshall designed it.


Kootenai Healths admissions are up 4 percent through the first three quarters of this year compared with the year-earlier period, Morris says. It expects to have $210 million in revenues at the end of this year, Anderson says. The institution is a 246-bed, publicly-owned nonprofit hospital system that employs 1,700.


Kootenai Health is financing the expansion through money it has in its reserves, Anderson says.


Contact Emily Proffitt at (509) 344-1265 or via e-mail at emilyp@spokanejournal.com.