Someday, patients from Arizona, Nevada and even as far away as Japan may fly into San Diego for heart treatment at Scripps Cardiovascular Institute. Or at least that’s what Scripps is hoping.
On May 31, Scripps Health announced plans to build a major heart institute that will combine its three cardiovascular programs at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, Scripps Green Hospital and Scripps Clinic into one $360 million center to be located on the Scripps Memorial site.
“It’s the coming together of the two largest programs, a true one-stop-shop for all of the patients that are in need for cardiac care, from the least invasive to the most invasive,” said Maurice Buchbinder, director of interventional cardiology at Scripps Memorial La Jolla.
Scripps can pour its resources into one center, instead of spreading them among the three programs. The hospitals will also no longer have to compete for clinical resources, building dollars, staffing dollars or equipment, Buchbinder said.
Patients will benefit from having some of the nation’s top cardiologists and cardiac surgeons under one roof, said Scripps Health spokesman Don Stanziano.
Scripps is also following a nation-wide trend to consolidate services for severe medical conditions, such as strokes and heart care.
While Scripps will no longer compete within itself, it will have a new competitor across the street: the Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center. Thornton Hospital plans to begin building the $136.5 million addition in December 2007, while Scripps expects to complete its center in five to seven years. Thornton is part of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus.
Scripps isn’t concerned by the competition, though, since its five hospitals serve 45,000 patients each year. In addition, Thornton’s heart center will only be half as large as Scripps’.
“UCSD’s mission is a little different than Scripps’ mission, in that we also focus on research and teaching, so this could actually provide additional opportunities for collaboration and actually create a world-class program,” said Kirk Knowlton, chief of cardiology at UCSD.
Cardiologists aren’t the only ones moving at Scripps, though. The entire hospital plans to relocate in about 15 years to comply with seismic codes. State legislation mandates that the building meet state seismic codes by 2013.
Of all the Scripps hospitals, Scripps Memorial La Jolla was most impacted by this law, Stanziano said. Scripps Green’s largest problem isn’t meeting seismic codes; it’s the fact that the campus is completely built out.
“If we wanted to expand our cardiac program, we couldn’t do it there,” Stanziano said.
He said he is not sure what will happen to the current hospital; it may be used for office or laboratory space.
As for passing on the cost to the patient, Stanziano doesn’t think that the new center will spike patient fees. Other factors contribute to rising health costs, he said.
The new cardiovascular institute will feature 144 in-patient beds, 30 intensive-care unit beds, 10 state-of-the-art operating rooms, cardiac catheterization labs, research labs and a center for graduate medical education.
More than 50 physicians will perform at least 5,000 interventional procedures, approximately 2,000 open-heart surgeries and 8,000 to 10,000 diagnostic catheterization procedures.
“These are numbers you can only see in large centers like in the east coast,” Buchbinder said. “We’re trying to make it economies of scale.”
Scripps will pay for the $360 million facility through financing, gifts and operating revenues.
