A new 74-bed regional hospital to serve the rapidly growing population of the Matanuska-Susitna area opens Jan. 27, near the intersection of the Parks and Glenn highways, offering a broad range of medical services.
Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, built at a cost of $87.7 million, is owned jointly by majority shareholder Triad Hospitals Inc. of Plano, Texas, and Valley Hospital Association. According to a Mat-Su Borough economic impact study, the new facility will add about 140 new jobs at the hospital, plus $1.3 million in property taxes and $106.5 million in hospital revenues annually.
The administrative contractor for the project is Bovis Lend Lease, an international firm with its U.S. headquarters in New York. The bulk of construction work was done by Alaska firms, said Elizabeth Ripley, director of marketing and public relations.
Grand opening ceremonies are set for Jan 22, but patients won't be moved from the old Valley Hospital in Palmer - which is up for sale - until Jan. 27, Ripley said.
While starting with 74 beds, hospital administrators plan to eventually add 52 medical and surgical unit beds on the third floor, she said. Administrators anticipate serving nearly 4,000 patients in 2006, and 5,557 by 2010, compared with the 2,763 who were discharged in 2002, Ripley said.
The existing Valley Hospital offers a wide range of medical services, including intensive care, obstetrics, medical and surgical, and emergency departments, plus cardio, pulmonary and respiratory therapy. The hospital also operates an urgent-care facility in Wasilla that will be renamed Mat-Su Regional Urgent Care.
One of the challenges has been recruiting additional physicians, from cardiologists and pediatricians to surgeons. To that end, the hospital has been working with a firm that specializes in building medical offices adjacent to the hospital, so physicians can lease to own, Ripley said.
Among the several dozen physicians now affiliated with the new regional medical center are a cardiologist, a medical oncologist, obstetricians, radiologists and anesthesiologists, Ripley said. Specialists soon to affiliate with the new hospital include a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who is a hand specialist, plus another general surgeon, a pediatrician and an intensivist, she said. An intensivist is a specialist in internal medical who specializes in hospital care.
Ripley said the existing surgery center at Valley Hospital's Wasilla facility will be moved to the new medical center, and new magnetic resonance imaging equipment will be at the new hospital, rather than at the old Wasilla location. In addition, radiation therapy services will now be available at the private office of a radiation oncologist who is joining the staff, she said.
The hospital is working closely with a private physician recruiting firm to fill other specialty needs, including a second oncologist, two more cardiologists and another neurologist, Ripley said.
As an incentive, the hospital is assisting new physicians in getting set up in their own private practices, she said.
Ripley noted earlier that the new medical center is offering salary guarantees within the provisions of the law, paying the physicians on a contractual basis until they are up and running. In return for a guarantee of a certain amount of cash receipts, the physicians will pay back in years of service to the community, she said.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
