Panel weighs in on PPH expansion plan

By: ANDREA MOSS - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 31, 2004 12:14 AM PDT ∞

POWAY ---- A panel of four out-of-town health care experts weighed in Friday on Palomar Pomerado Health's expansion plan, calling it a well-thought-out one that will benefit the community.

The panel also challenged the district, though, to be more innovative in its planning for the future. The experts cited concerns about the rapid pace of technological advances in health care over the past few years.

Derek Parker, an architect from Los Angeles who has designed more than 50 major medical facilities in the past 45 years, zeroed in on a part of the plan that calls for building a new hospital that features areas devoted to highly specialized medical services.

Health district officials have touted the so-called speciality care centers ---- including a women's center and heart surgery, neurosurgery and vascular units ---- as a highlight of the expansion plan. The expansion is designed to provide the region with top-notch health care for the next 25 to 30 years.

Parker said he feared the speciality areas could become obsolete relatively quickly.

"I'm scared to death that we're going to spend $100 million on a (central hospital) platform that, 20 years from now, we won't need anymore," he said. "Is it possible that 20 years in the future, a patient is going to have everything done in the same area?"

Dr. Ron Riner, who heads the St. Louis-based Riner Group health care consulting firm, noted today's consumers are "very much interested in that one-stop thing."

And Minnesota oncologist Dr. Richard YaDeau suggested the hospital district emulate Intel Corporation's business model.

"Intel looks at everything as if it's going to be outdated in 18 months," he said.

The panel acknowledged the difficulty, though, of trying to foresee future health care needs.

The experts are in the area for a leadership conference Palomar Pomerado Health is sponsoring today in Poway. Over 100 of the hospital district's physicians are expected to attend the event, whose theme is the "Hospital of the Future."

A total of six panelists are scheduled to make presentations on the subject, though the specific focus of each speech will vary.

YaDeau plans to discuss the role of genetics and technology in future hospitals. He is a faculty member at the nonprofit Estes Park Institute, which conducts educational conferences on medical issues. The institute's headquarters are in Englewood, Colo.

Riner had a 15-year private medical practice before he established a health care consulting firm. His presentation at the conference will focus on physicians.

Parker, a principal architect with design firm Anshen & Allen, will talk about designing future hospitals.

The fourth panelist present Friday was Bill Dwyer, a senior vice president at Cerner Corporation in Kansas City, Missouri, which advises health care facilities and organizations on information technology systems. He will speak on that topic at the conference.

The four took time out from a conference rehearsal Friday for a briefing on the hospital district's plan for a $753 million expansion. Approved by the district's board last month, the plan calls for spending $531 million to build a new medical center in or near Escondido.

The new full-service hospital would replace Palomar Medical Center on East Valley Parkway in Escondido, which would be downsized to a 72-bed speciality hospital. Also under the plan, Poway's Pomerado Hospital would double in size and several outpatient centers would be built in outlying parts of the 800-square-mile health district.

On Thursday, Palomar Pomerado Health's own architects reiterated that the expansion would enable the district to meet state mandated seismic standards and provide facilities capable of serving a population that is expected to grow by at least 30 percent in the next 25 years.

The extent of the expansion makes careful planning a priority at this point, architect Tom Chessum said.

"What we decide now probably takes advantage of the greatest opportunity we can get compared to the further and further we get into this project," he said.

The expert panel seemed to agree. However, even as they pushed for more innovation, the guests seemed to recognize there are limits to how far that can be carried.

The health district may have to focus such efforts on just a handful of the plan's aspects, Dwyer said, while YaDeau said an emphasis on flexibility may be the answer.

"We must figure out how to have a hospital that is so adaptable that you can do absolutely anything with it in the future," he said.

The board is scheduled to finalize a financing plan for the expansion Wednesday. The district's Finance Committee unanimously agreed Thursday to recommend a plan that includes a $496 million bond measure on the November ballot.

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, email addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.