Kootenai Health is much more than the community hospital it was just a few years ago, before it began implementing its current strategic plan, says Jeremy Evans, the Coeur d’Alene-based health system’s vice president of operations.

Under the strategic plan, the health care system, formerly known as Kootenai Medical Center, has launched a rebranding campaign and is expanding not just in its main facility, but also is adding services and forming partnerships with other health care agencies and practices, Evans says.

“It’s all part of our strategic plan to help support and expand our health care services as we continue to grow from a community hospital into a comprehensive regional medical center,” he says.

Perhaps the most visible component of its strategic plan is the $57 million construction project launched almost a year ago on Kootenai Health’s main hospital campus, at 2003 Kootenai Health Way, near the northwest corner of U.S. 95 and Ironwood Drive in north Coeur d’Alene.

Leading up to the facility expansion, Kootenai Health also has expanded its cardiology, electrophysiology, endocrinology, and rheumatology services. The hospital also last year obtained verification as a Level III trauma center, Evans says.

Kootenai Health is working to be a regional referral center, meaning it aims to provide specialized treatments to patients living in Coeur d’Alene and in surrounding communities so that patients won’t have to travel to more distant hospitals and providers, such as in Spokane, for medical treatment, he says.

The vision is based on the projected growing—and aging—population with rising health care needs in North Idaho, and the belief that patients benefit from the ability to receive care closer to home, says Lisa Aitken, a Kootenai Health spokeswoman.

“When patients can be referred to services within the community they know and have the support of their family and friends nearby, they consistently have better outcomes,” she says.

The big construction project taking place on the former east lawn of Kootenai Health’s main hospital facility is the first of three phases of construction envisioned under the strategic plan and also the first major expansion of the hospital since its three-story patient tower opened in 1984.

The current project will include a three-story, 100,000-square-foot addition.

Evans says the ground floor of the addition will include a family birthing center, a neonatal intensive care unit, a lobby and registration area, and an expanded waiting area.

The family birthing center will have 10 labor-and-delivery suites and 18 mother-baby rooms, he says.

The hospital currently has a special-care nursery, which is staffed and equipped to provide extra attention and care for babies born as early eight weeks premature and as small as three pounds. 

The planned neonatal ICU will have 12 rooms, Evans says. The unit will be staffed and equipped to provide a higher level of care for high-risk newborns and infants with more complex critical illnesses than the hospital’s current nursery is capable of treating.

The second floor of the addition will have 32 patient rooms and will house Kootenai Health’s neurology and orthopedic units. It also will have space for the hospital’s total joint replacement program and a small rehabilitation gym for orthopedic patients.

The third floor will be shell space to be finished in a later phase of the master plan.

The first-phase of the expansion is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2016.

“So far, it’s on time and on budget,” Evans says.

Bouten Construction Co., of Spokane, is the contactor on the project, and NAC|Architecture, also of Spokane, designed it.

When the initial phase is complete, the hospital, which is licensed for 254 beds, will have a net increase of 18 private rooms.

“Then, we’ll roll right into the next phase,” Evans says.

The second phase will repurpose the space that will be freed up when departments move into the phase-one space.

“The newly free space in the existing facility will allow us to expand the surgery and emergency departments,” Evans says. 

ER visits have grown to almost 50,000 a year, making Kootenai Health’s ER the busiest in Idaho, Evans claims.

“The surgery and emergency departments have no room to expand because they’re sandwiched between other departments,” he says.

The cost for the second expansion phase, which is now in the planning stage, is estimated at $29 million.

No timeline is set yet for the third phase, Evans says.

“The third phase will include finishing the third floor, adding a 32-bed unit as patient volume and needs continue to grow,” he says.

The expansion will be funded through cash reserves, community donations to the Kootenai Health Foundation, and debt, Evans says.

Aiken says Kootenai Health has taken on $75 million in debt financing to help pay portions of the first and second phases of the expansion and some capital expenditures over the next five years.

Annual capital expenditures average $20 million for facility updates, information technology upgrades, and medical equipment, she says.

“Current favorable interest rates make this a good time to incur debt for needed space that will service our community for years to come,” she says.

Kootenai Health is owned and operated by the Kootenai Hospital District, which was formed in 1956 because the community’s medical needs had outgrown two 36-bed hospitals in Coeur d’Alene.

Though the hospital district is a taxing entity, Evans says it hasn’t levied property taxes since 1995.

“No taxes were levied for this project,” Evans says, adding that Kootenai Health has no plans to assess taxes in the foreseeable future.

Its current annual operating budget is $366.5 million, up from $333 million last year.

The expansion is expected to generate 100 to 150 new staff positions by 2018, Evans says.

“Staffing will ramp up as the need for services increases and will continue growing over time,” he says.

Kootenai Health had about 2,250 full-time employees as of last month.

The hospital has about 130 physicians on staff and another 490 physicians have privileges. It also has nearly 700 nurses on staff.

Kootenai Health is recruiting primary care and internist physicians, as well as other advanced specialty physicians, Evans says.

Kootenai Health admitted just over 13,000 patients in its main hospital in 2014, up from about 12,900 a year earlier.

Among other components of its strategic plan, Kootenai Health is a founding member of the recently formed InnerPacific Alliance for Cancer Care LLC, which includes Spokane-based Providence Health Care and Cancer Care Northwest as founding members. 

In late 2013, Rehabilitation Hospital of the Northwest opened at 3372 E. Jenalan in Post Falls. The 30-bed acute-rehabilitation facility is a joint venture between Kootenai Health and Albuquerque-based Ernest Health Inc.

Also in 2013, affiliate Kootenai Clinic leased most of the space in a new building at 1919 Lincoln Way, in Coeur d’Alene. Four physician practices and Kootenai Health’s family residency program are among tenants in the four-story, 48,000-square-foot building.