Designed to Provide State-of-the-Art Care / Larger operating and procedure rooms / Full range of diagnostic imaging services / Additional special procedure rooms

 

(Castro Valley, Calif.) — The Eden Township Healthcare District and Sutter Health have announced an agreement to build a new hospital to replace Eden Medical Center and continue acute care services at San Leandro Hospital.

 

Sutter Health will fund the development and construction of a new 130-bed hospital on Eden’s Castro Valley campus. This is the largest investment in Eden Medical Center’s history, and the largest for a healthcare facility in central Alameda County, totaling more than $300 million. Sutter Health’s investment in the construction of the new hospital includes related improvements and the demolition of the old hospital once services are transferred to the new facility.

 

Sutter Health will also commit to the continuation of general acute care and emergency services at Eden’s San Leandro Hospital Campus until at least June, 2009. Over the next two years, Eden Medical Center and Sutter Health will work with local physicians and providers to enhance services and improve the financial performance of the hospital.

 

Despite heavy financial losses throughout its 47-year history, San Leandro Hospital will benefit from a commitment between Eden Medical Center and Sutter Health to a two-year plan to stabilize the hospital by investing in new technology for the radiology department, enhancing surgical services, transforming a vacant floor of the hospital to an acute rehabilitation unit, and establishing a hospitalist program.

Sutter Health has committed to the continuation of essential health care services at Eden Medical Center, including the Emergency Department, Trauma Center, Neuroscience Center, maternity and other medical and surgical care.

 

This investment in the Eden community is part of a $7 billion commitment by Sutter Health to replace, improve and construct new physician offices, outpatient clinics and acute care hospital facilities in big cities and small towns all over Northern California, from rural Amador County to downtown San Francisco.

 

California Senate Bill 1953 requires all general acute-care inpatient hospitals in the state to either be retrofitted or rebuilt to meet earthquake life safety standards by 2008, and more stringent earthquake conformance mandates by 2030.

 

 

 

California's hospitals are on the front lines--operating around-the-clock emergency rooms and providing critical trauma care to all patients regardless of their ability to pay.

 

But California's hospitals face an unprecedented state mandate to meet sweeping new earthquake safety standards--an unfunded requirement so enormous that it dwarfs the ability of even the most financially sound hospitals to pay for it.

 

California's hospital seismic safety law, SB 1953, was passed in 1994 and requires every hospital building to comply with two deadlines. By Jan. 1, 2008 (or no later than Jan. 1, 2013 if an extension has been granted), every hospital building must meet specific construction standards established to keep these structures standing after a major earthquake. By Jan. 1, 2030, the law requires all hospital buildings to comply with standards intended to keep these buildings operational following a severe quake.

 

The costs of meeting this unfunded mandate continue to skyrocket. Many factors--including inflation, the limited number of qualified engineers and contractors, and the soaring costs of building materials - have pushed those costs up by as much as 20 percent annually. Since 2001, the estimated costs for hospital construction have more than doubled from $1 million to up to $2.5 million per bed. Most hospitals in California--even those with strong finances--cannot afford to sustain up to 20 percent annual increases in facility construction. And the majority of California hospitals do not have strong financial bottom-lines.

 

In the midst of these difficult times, policymakers and the public increasingly expect hospitals to invest in new, expensive technologies (such as those aimed at reducing medical errors and adding electronic medical records) that will improve the quality of care provided to patients. Again, these are worthy goals--but hospitals cannot do it all.

 

The state's health care system is already facing extreme economic and operational pressures. Sixty-six percent of California's hospitals – two out of every three - are currently losing money from operations. Hospitals are reeling from the impacts of reductions in reimbursement and delayed or denied payments from health plans, a statewide nursing shortage, increasing numbers of uninsured patients and surging growth in the state's population.

SB 1953 At A Glance