Hospital seeks to regain market

Some $30 million a year is spent for medical care in neighboring Reno by people who live in the market served by Carson/Tahoe Hospital.

More troubling to hospital officials, they were forced several times this winter to send patients to competitors' facilities in Reno when the Carson City hospital reached capacity.

Officials of the Carson City hospital hope to recapture their hometown market with completion of the new Carson/Tahoe Regional Medical Center.

Construction of the $132 million project believed by hospital officials to be the biggest job in Carson City history is expected to begin this summer.

The three-story, 330,000-square-foot medical facility is scheduled to open in 2005.

Ed Epperson, chief executive officer of the hospital, said last week the new facility on 70 acres at the north edge of Carson City will be about three times the size of the existing Carson/Tahoe Hospital, which is unable to expand into nearby residential areas.

Staff levels, too, will increase.

Epperson said he expects the regional medical center will add "a couple hundred" employees once the facility is completed.

The hospital currently has a staff of about 1,000 and an annual payroll of $30 million.

The design of the regional medical center probably will define much of the development at the northern gateway of Carson City, the CEO said.

Design work is being handled by Moon Mayoras Associates of San Diego.

While the architect and general contractor for the project are specialists in hospital construction from outside the area, Epperson said contracts specify that subcontractor packages will be written to allow local firms to bid.

The new medical facility is a rarity.

Only nine new hospitals were built last year in the entire United States, Epperson said.

While many hospitals spent much of the 1990s scaling back their operations, the population growth of northern Nevada especially among graying adults has stretched the capacity of Carson/Tahoe Hospital.

The new facility will have nothing but private rooms, which Epperson said will ease the management headaches associated with matching patients in semiprivate rooms.

The hospital spent much of the past three years getting itself ready to undertake the transition to the new regional medical center.

Previously county-owned, Carson/Tahoe Hospital made the transition to an independent nonprofit institution in early 2002.

If nothing else, Epperson said, the transition from a public institution allowed the hospital to conduct strategy sessions in private rather than in the open setting demanded of public agencies.

The transition will be reflected, too, in a name change.

The current facility is known as Carson/Tahoe Hospital; the new facility will be known as Carson/Tahoe Regional Medical Center.

While plenty of for-profit hospital companies had expressed interest in the Carson/Tahoe Hospital, and while there's no shortage of companies interested in sharing the financing of the new center, Epperson said his organization decided it won't use a capital partner.

That, he said, will allow Carson/Tahoe Regional Medical Center to keep earnings at home for improvement of medical services.

He said hospital officials don't know what will become of the existing 120,000-square-foot facility in west-central Carson City.

Epperson said officials are aware of their responsibility to protect the value of neighboring property, and he expects the hospital will continue to own the facility for a use such as nursing home.