Sutter gets final approval

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors gave a largely symbolic
vote to approve several facets of the proposed Sutter hospital and
medical center to be built in the site of the Wells Fargo Center
for the Arts in Santa Rosa.
“Sonoma County will be fortunate to have a new, state-of-art,
seismically safe, hospital providing quality services to our
community for years to come,” said Rita Scardaci, Sonoma County
Health Services Director in a press release issued shortly after
the supervisors unanimously approved the Environmental Impact
Report and Sutter’s revised business plan.
The decision represents the culmination of nearly a decade of
work by Sutter officials, who began the process in January 1999
with a survey of local health care and the projected needs of the
community.
In August of that year, the board of supervisors gave Sutter the
go ahead to explore options for a new hospital, as Sutter Medical
Center of Santa Rosa (SMCSR) on Chanate Road — formerly Community
Hospital, which Sutter took over in 1996 under the Health Care
Access Agreement (HCAA) with the county — was deemed too expensive
to repair.
Sutter was required to either come up with a plan to perform
state-mandated seismic retrofits on the Chanate facility by 2013,
or have plans to build a new hospital by December of this year.
In 2004, Sutter submitted a proposal to build “118 licensed
inpatient beds” with “an adjacent medical office building (to)
house hospital administrative offices, physician offices and
ambulatory patient services” on the Wells Fargo location — then
known as the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.
In 2003, the total cost of the hospital was expected to be
$203.4 million and the facility would grow to include 170 beds with
“a rising ratio of intensive care to medical surgical beds” to
reflect expected uses and growing capacity for projected health
care in the county.
The 2004 plan cited $50 million in losses for SMCSR in 2001 and
2002, and an increasing ratio of indigent, uninsured and
underinsured patients that was unsustainable. The move was deemed
necessary due to “the need for a more diverse payer mix” that would
allow Sutter to capture more “commercial” patients.
Sutter Health purchased 53-acres on the Wells Fargo Center site
in 2006 for $10 million in anticipation of building the new
facility.
In November 2008, an updated proposal was submitted that
included a 70 bed facility, with the potential to expand by another
29 beds, and a Physicians Medical Center intended to help SMCSR
attract doctors.
The proposal has brought criticism from other hospital officials
in the area who believe Sutter is moving to the new location in
order to cherry-pick patients with the ability to pay, leaving
community hospitals such as Palm Drive, Healdsburg District and
Sonoma Valley to take care of a growing indigent health care
population.
“That’s a mischaracterization of the issue,” said Sutter CEO
Mike Cohill. “Hospitals don’t attract patients, doctors do.”
Cohill added that the business plan and location will be
advantageous to the population Sutter serves, and expects
construction of the new SMCSR— which will include 82-licensed beds,
with capacity to expand by an additional 27 beds — to begin by Oct.
1.
Construction of the $284 million project is expected to be
complete by 2014, and is expected to create about 1,500 jobs in the
planning, design and construction of the new hospital.
The HCAA, which was set to expire in 2014, has been extended to
2021 and county officials hope to extend it even further in the
future.
The 5-minute final approval came in stark contrast to the past
year of process, which saw nine two-hour focus groups with
community stakeholders, three public workshops, and a nearly 4-hour
board of supervisors meeting last month that saw more than 2-dozen
speakers voicing concerns about the site, including an increased
carbon footprint and limited access for indigent patients due to
limited transportation options, as well as other environmental
issues.
Residents of the surrounding Larkfield-Wikiup neighborhood came
out in force last year, citing traffic concerns, particularly
during school sessions, when Sutter patients will be jockeying with
parents delivering students to at least seven schools in the
area.
The county has posted the Department of Health Services’ final
report on Sutter’s plan on its web site at www.sonoma-county.org/county-sutter-proposal.