Kootenai Medical Center, in Coeur dAlene, says its creating a master campus plan this year that will guide hospital officials when they draw up a new five-year expansion strategy in 2006.


KMC has hired Seattle-based Mithun Inc., which provides master campus planning for health-care facilities, to do the plan thats under way this year. Architect and urban planner Lee Copeland and architect Dick Robison, both with Mithun, started the master campus plan in the summer and met with KMCs administrative team in September to discuss development options and goals, KMC CEO Joe Morris says.


Mithun probably will finish the master campus plan by the end of the year, and after that plan is done, KMC hopes to complete its new five-year expansion strategy by mid-2006. It might start its first building project under that strategy by the end of next year, Morris says.


Currently, KMC is wrapping up projects related to a five-year plan it started in 2000, Morris says. Those projects, worth a total of $50 million, included upgrading the hospitals patient rooms, expanding its emergency room, and building a new parking garage.


Since 2000, it also has bought six pieces of property that cover nine acres of land surrounding its campus. That land, worth a total of about $3 million, has increased KMCs holdings at its main site at 2003 Lincoln Way to 35 acres.


KMCs land acquisitions will enable it to build more facilities in the future, but first it needs to develop the master campus plan, which will be the first of its kind for the hospital, Morris says.


We can only build buildings as long as we have land to construct them on, Morris says. Land is a luxury very few hospitals have. Before we develop a master plan to guide growth through the remainder of the decade, we need to look at our land base to determine how and when to grow.


KMCs most recent property acquisition was last summer, when it bought a duplex and the lot it sits on behind the Interlake Medical Building south of the hospital across West Ironwood Drive, he says. In addition, it bought Panhandle Health Districts 5-acre site at 2195 Ironwood Court, just west of the hospital, in June, and bought the 2,500-square-foot Shawn Montee Timber Co. building, at 2251 N. Ironwood Center Drive, last March. Panhandle currently is building a new facility on Hanley Avenue, north of its current location, and will move there next September, Morris says.


KMC is in negotiations to buy six more acres of property west of the main hospital building near its North Idaho Behavioral Building, which is at 2301 Ironwood Place, he says. It also owns a 10-acre site in Post Falls. Half of the latter property is occupied by a physicians building, at 1300 E. Mullan. The rest of the land is used as soccer fields by the community, and in the future the hospital might develop that land further, he says.


The master campus plan will help it decide what additional land it will have an interest in buying, he says.


Mithun will provide a master campus plan that looks ahead 20 years to provide a blueprint for future expansion, he says. It also will advise the hospitals current board of trustees on how to create a consistent atmosphere and look throughout the campus as the hospital expands, and it will provide options for improving traffic flow and making other infrastructure changes at the campus.


Late last month, hospital officials met with representatives from the Idaho state Transportation Department and the city of Coeur dAlene to discuss traffic options that include bike-trail connections as well as improved traffic flow on West Ironwood Drive, Morris says. The hospital also is discussing traffic options with surrounding land owners and says its involving them in the campus planning process.


Short-term infrastructure goals might include creating more entrances for vehicles from West Ironwood Drive and improving bike traffic by connecting the Centennial Trail to a trail that runs from East Appleway Avenue, just north of the hospital, to Hayden Avenue, Morris says.


A long-term goal might be to create a new front entrance to the hospital within the next 10 to 20 years, he says. Morris anticipates the master campus plan also will include landscaping and building projects.


The first building project probably will involve constructing an office structure adjacent to the main hospital building to free up space there to accommodate growing clinical departments and to consolidate administrative departments, he says. He expects bids for that project probably will go out late next summer.


The hospital moved its business and accounting offices last September from its main building east to a former Empire Airlines building, at 2115 Government Way, that it currently is renting. It likely will move those departments and its social services and administrative offices to the new building, and might create space for an information technology department there.


We dont like having people spread around town, Morris says. If we had a new office building, we could also download some pressure off of the main building.


In addition to the goals established in the master campus plan, the hospital will also take into account projected clinical services volumes, demographic trends, and technological advances when developing its five-year expansion strategy next year, he says. It needs to evaluate the master campus plan before it can estimate costs for that five-year plan, he says.


Clinical services at KMC, including cardiology, vascular surgery, oncology, orthopedics, and neurosurgery, are growing by 10 percent a year, Morris says. He says the hospitals expansion strategy will take into account growth in those departments to help decide which areas to expand in the future.


Admissions at the hospital have grown by just 2 percent this year, he says. Volume in its emergency room, however, has grown by 10 percent, which reflects overall population growth in Kootenai County, Morris says. Volume at its North Idaho Cancer Center has grown by 20 percent, which reflects a rising older population. Overall outpatient volume has outpaced inpatient admissions markedly, growing at about a 9 percent pace, which is a result of innovations in less invasive surgical procedures, he says.


Since KMC drew up its 2000-2005 five-year plan, Kootenai Countys population has grown rapidly, he says. Property values have risen sharply in the county in the past three years, which creates a concern about the areas cost of living for employees and for buying more property there.


Coeur dAlene has a different feel to it, partly because of the type of development going on here, Morris says. It creates a different atmosphere and challenge for us.


Some of that development doesnt impact the hospital, because people buying upscale condominiums in the area typically only live there part of the year, unlike people who buy year-round homes and send their children to schools in the Coeur dAlene area, he says. Meanwhile, several health-care facilities have cropped up in Kootenai County, such as Northwest Specialty Hospital, in Post Falls, which has increased competition there, he says.


The hospitals revenues were up by 8 percent, at $170 million, through the first three quarters this year, Morris says. He expects revenues will grow next year, but at a more moderate pace, because the hospital isnt planning to raise its prices in 2006. KMC is a 246-bed, publicly-owned nonprofit hospital and has 1,600 employees.