KRMC board to vote on major expansion tower

Northwest Healthcare, the parent company of Kalispell Regional Medical Center, is in the final approval stages required before starting construction on phase one of a new surgical services tower at the hospital.

Jim Oliverson, a vice president and hospital spokesman, said the project still requires city planning approvals as well as the go-ahead from Northwest Healthcare’s Board of Trustees on Oct. 28 when construction costs are finalized.

No estimates of the cost were provided, but Oliverson said bids received from contractors have come in at or below projections. Local contractors will be extensively involved in this project.

“The board has asked us to, wherever possible, use local contractors,” Oliverson said.

The new tower will include three floors with capability to support two more floors for future growth. Details were provided in a Planned Unit Development application submitted to the Kalispell Planning Board.

Targeted to begin in December, phase one of the tower construction would build eight operating rooms with shells for four more, a shell for 30 future patient rooms and additional square footage for a future emergency room expansion.

Oliverson said this 10-year plan begins with phase one addressing the pressing need for more surgical space. He said surgeries grew from 7,987 in 2004 to 13,507 in 2010 between Kalispell Regional Medical Center and HealthCenter Northwest.

“That’s pretty amazing growth,” Oliverson said.

He pointed to a list of new physicians that includes about 15 board-certified specialists involved in surgeries including cardiac, neurosurgery, breast surgery, orthopedic and oncology surgery.

“All of these people need space and equipment to work,” Olilverson said.

Northwest Healthcare added its first oncology surgeon a little over a year ago. Oliverson said Dr. David Sheldon was quickly booked up with demand higher than anticipated.

 “We didn’t realize how many people were leaving the area to get cancer surgery,” he said. “We now have a second surgical oncologist — Sydney Lillard.”

Oliverson said some of the more complex cancer surgeries — patients with other health problems like diabetes — may still be referred outside the area. He said physicians at Northwest Healthcare facilities now cover 12 disciplines of surgery.

Along with growth in patient loads demanding more rooms, new technologies require more space than the 400-700 square feet in the existing operating rooms.

“When we built those, we thought they were huge,” Oliverson said.

The new, second-floor 800-plus square-feet operating rooms will replace six, 30-year-old surgical suites on the first floor. A phase two remodel scheduled to begin in 2013 will expand emergency room facilities to about 27,000 square feet between the vacated operating room areas and newly constructed areas.

“It’s an efficient means of taking the present emergency room and expanding it into the operating room areas where much of the infrastructure is in place,” Oliverson said. “But we can’t do that until we move into the new operating rooms.”

Plans call for completion of phase one by February 2012 and the phase two emergency-room expansion by September 2014.

 The lower-level construction of the tower expands the basement and existing building into the emergency room parking lot to add an enclosed ambulance entrance, a central sterile department, surgical offices and a shell for the phase two emergency-room expansion

The second floor of the new tower will connect to the existing patient tower and will have a visitor/patient entrance in the northwest admitting lobby. This second level consists of 57,700 square feet with eight operating rooms and shells for four more, 18 same-day services beds, 18 post-anesthesia care unit beds, two endoscopy procedure rooms, two fluoroscopy procedure rooms, nurses and physicians lounge and offices and storage areas.

The third floor is a 32,900 square-feet shell designed for 30 future intermediate-care patient rooms and ancillary spaces. The design includes an exterior terrace and green space for use by third-floor patients, visitors and staff.

Phase three of the 10-year plan calls for construction of a parking garage between the ALERT hangar and Brendan House in 2015 while phase four would build a second parking garage between Kalispell Regional Medical Center and The Summit in 2018.

Phase five would develop recreational vehicle parking and green spaces on the hospital campus in 2020. No date is projected for the construction of the fourth and fifth floors of the tower.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com