Official Says Hospital Expansions Will Improve Healthcare Services For Residents

Southwest Healthcare System sees better days ahead as it for faster service and greater capacity at Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar and Rancho Springs Medical Center in Murrieta.

Along with adding additional beds, more doctors and nurses will be added to serve a higher numbers of patients.

According to Summer Scott, director of business development for Southwest Healthcare System -- the umbrella for Inland Valley and Rancho Springs -- the expansions should speed up the process for doctor visits and patient admissions, including mothers to-be.

“We are always close to being at capacity,” Scott said. “This will reduce the waiting times for patients and babies.”

With a total of about 2,600 employees currently, together Inland Valley and Rancho Springs serve about 425,000 people in Southwest Riverside -- nearly 74,000 patients are admitted to the hospitals' emergency department rooms annually.

Southwest Heathcare System utilizes independent contractors for hiring services. Scott said the number of new doctors and nurses to be hired at the two hospitals has not been determined.

“As we add capacity for more patients, more employees will be hired,” she said, noting that it is a wait-and-see process.

On Feb. 11, Southwest Healthcare received permission from the California Department of Public Health to open more beds in the emergency department and new women’s services unit at Rancho Springs Medical Center and in the emergency department and intensive care unit at Inland Valley Medical Center.

This week, Southwest opened 16 emergency department bays, four emergency department bays for urgent care and four emergency department bays for triage at its hospitals.

Inland Valley Medical Center’s first phase of expansion will open on Feb. 23. It will feature 18 bays new bays in the emergency department, four bays for urgent care and four bays for triage. Each bay is a small private room with one bed.

On Feb. 27, Inland Valley will open 11 new intensive care unit beds.

In early March, the first phase of expanding the Women’s Center at Rancho Springs will open for patients. The women’s services expansion includes seven labor and delivery rooms, 14 post-partum rooms, two maternity triage rooms, two surgical suites and two post-anesthesia care unit bays.

The new women’s services unit will increase capacity for newborns, but it does not include a neonatal intensive care unit, although one could possibly be added later, Scott said.

At Rancho Springs and Inland Valley, doctors delivered 3,763 babies in 2010. That number is expected to increase this year.

As the new facilities open, existing patients will be moved to the new bays under a planned transition process. New signage will be posted and additional staff will be on duty to help in the transition.

The added beds are part of the process of filling up $78 million in expansions to the two hospitals. At Inland Valley Medical Center, a $24.7 million 30,000-square-foot expansion was finished in September 2010.

A $53 million, 72,000-square-foot building expansion at Rancho Springs was completed in 2009.

But both expansions had been sitting vacant because Southwest Healthcare System is in the process of a yearlong program to improve facilities at its two hospitals after receiving poor marks from the state on various hospital inspections over a three-year period.

Improved service is one issue being looked into by the California Department of Public Health. Other areas looked at include emergency services, nursing services, infection control, patients’ rights and proper medical staff.

Scott said the issues are being addressed and that Southwest Healthcare System is committed to high-quality care.

Although the California Department of Public Health approved the recent expansions, Southwest is on notice: Thirty days after the first-phase openings, the state will evaluate the improvements and then consider authorizing a second phase of adding bays and beds.