THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 11, 1996 TAG: 9609110460
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 56 lines
The new owner of Portsmouth General Hospital wants to move six of the downtown facility's operating rooms to the suburbs. The move is part of a plan to close the hospital within the next two years.
Maryview Medical Center, which bought Portsmouth General in May, wants to start an outpatient surgery center in the growth area where Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Suffolk meet. The new center would be on Lynn Drive on the border of Chesapeake and Suffolk, about 1 1/2 miles over the Portsmouth city line.
Maryview doesn't have room to handle the extra surgery traffic from Portsmouth General, hospital officials said.
From a business standpoint, the plan illustrates how important outpatient surgery is to hospitals. Changes in insurance company policies and in medical technology are cutting the time patients spend in hospitals.
The state, which strictly limits the number of operating rooms, must agree to the move. Eastern Virginia Health Systems Agency, the local regulatory body, will hold a public hearing today.
Maryview wants to combine almost all the outpatient business from both hospitals at the new center.
Six of Portsmouth General's 11 operating rooms would go there, including eye surgery facilities, said Louise B. Eidson, Maryview's vice president of marketing and planning.
Maryview would lease the office space from a developer, who plans to build a medical office building on the site. Maryview would modify the rooms at a cost of about $1.8 million.
Unlike a hospital, the facility would be open only during the day.
The operating rooms would be equipped to handle unexpected complications during surgeries. If the patient couldn't go home, he would be transferred to the hospital. Maryview will continue to offer the more serious inpatient operations, as well as some special types of outpatient surgery, said Eidson.
``It's in response to the need from the patients and the physicians,'' said Eidson, who's in charge of marketing and planning. ``If you look at where new construction is taking place, it's obviously in the suburbs.''
Tapping that demand is crucial, according to many hospital leaders. Managed care - a type of health insurance that aims to cut costs by limiting hospital stays - has hurt hospital profits.
But outpatient surgery is growing, in part because it's less expensive for the insurers. Improvements in equipment and techniques also have made many operations much less invasive and allowed patients to recover faster.
Most South Hampton Roads hospitals are making their outpatient clinics more attractive, often by building separate entrances along with convenient parking.
The state will consider whether the move will affect access to health care, but that's not much of an issue in this case, said Paul M. Boynton, executive director of the agency. The new location would be about eight miles from Portsmouth General and about 5 miles from Maryview.
KEYWORDS: OUTPATIENT SURGERY PORTSMOUTH GENERAL HOSPITAL by CNB