California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of September 10, 2010

California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco

On Nov. 1, California Pacific Medical Center is expected to sell its outpatient dialysis services to Denver-based DaVita for an undisclosed amount, the San Francisco Business Times reports. The sale will affect about 270 patients of the CPMC ambulatory dialysis service at its Pacific and Davies locations, according to a spokesperson.

The California Nurses Association has expressed opposition to the deal, contending that the switch would put patients at risk because DaVita's clinical outcomes are weaker than CPMC's. Delvecchio Finley, CPMC's vice president of operations, said that the same physicians and many of the same staff members will continue working at the dialysis service when DaVita takes over (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 9/3).

Camp Pendleton Hospital

Clark Construction and McCarthy Builders have received a  $451 million contract to construct a 500,000 square-foot hospital at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.  The facility is expected to be completed in four years.

Although the new hospital will be 40,000 square feet larger than Camp Pendleton's existing medical facility, it will include only 67 inpatient beds, down from the existing hospital's 72 beds.

Che Miranda -- deputy chief of staff for installations and logistics at Navy Medicine West -- said funding for the project comes from the Department of Defense's $7.4 billion share of the $787 billion federal economic stimulus package approved last year. Miranda also said the project was part of the military's efforts to align its medical facilities with California's seismic safety requirements (Showley, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/2).

Highland Hospital, Oakland

Alameda County Medical Center is moving forward on a $668 million project to rebuild Highland Hospital, the San Francisco Business Times reports.

Officials said the initiative, called the Highland Hospital Acute Tower Replacement, will be the largest construction project undertaken by the county. The project is expected to be completed by 2017, at which time the existing acute-care facility will be razed.

The project will entail the removal of six existing buildings and the construction of two new buildings, including a 250,000 square-foot inpatient tower and a 75,000 square-foot satellite facility (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 9/3).

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose

Santa Clara County auditors have not been able to confirm how much Santa Clara Valley Medical Center reduced spending as a result of a $20 million contract with Deloitte Consulting, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports.

The hospital and health system's $1.2 billion budget is the largest expenditure in the county's $4.4 billion budget. The medical center reported that it reduced spending by $63 million because of its partnership with Deloitte. However, county auditor Roger Mialocq said that he could not verify the figure and that the method used to determine savings had many "built-in deficiencies" (Duan, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 9/7).

Simi Valley Hospital

Some exterior areas of Simi Valley Hospital's patient care tower are leaking and need repairs, even though they were built two years ago, the Ventura County Star reports.