Medical foundation determined to build in Sequoia district Medical foundation determined to build in Sequoia district (January 28, 2004)

Center to include full-service hospital, outpatient care

By Renee Batti

Almanac News Editor

It was a bold statement: Dr. David Druker of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation faced the board of the health-care district that serves -- and taxes -- south San Mateo County residents, and announced that his health-care group is determined to build "a world-class health-care facility in your district."

Dr. Druker made the statement at a January 7 fact-gathering meeting convened in frustration by the Sequoia Healthcare District board to learn more about the intentions of the two health-care groups that have said they want to build new state-of-the-art hospitals within a few miles of each other.

More information about the plans was necessary, board members said, if the district is to make a responsible decision regarding the possible use of public money to help rebuild Sequoia Hospital -- the Redwood City facility on Alameda de las Pulgas that primarily serves residents of the health-care district, which includes Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside and Portola Valley.

Representatives from the private, nonprofit Catholic Healthcare West (CHW), which operates Sequoia Hospital, declined the district's invitation to attend and discuss what CHW intends to do as the deadline to retrofit or rebuild Sequoia looms.

CHW and the public health-care district partnered in 1996 in order to save the publicly owned hospital, which was swimming in a sea of red ink. The two entities created a nonprofit corporation -- Sequoia Health Services, or SHS -- that now owns and governs the hospital. SHS has a 10-member governing board, with five members appointed by CHW, and five by the Sequoia Healthcare District.

The hospital is now thriving, and in early 2003 it appeared that CHW and the district were on the fast-track to purchase land in Redwood City, near the Bayshore Freeway, to build a new facility. But the effort stalled, in part because the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF), which is affiliated with the nonprofit Sutter Health, announced plans in May to build its own medical facility, complete with a 100-plus-bed hospital, in nearby San Carlos.

At the January 7 meeting, Dr. Druker announced that the foundation has options not only on the 18.5-acre site in San Carlos that was earlier mentioned, but also on a 16-acre property on Broadway in Redwood City -- across the street from the property, also on Broadway, that Sequoia district and CHW officials favored as the new Sequoia site.

The Broadway properties are only a short distance south of Kaiser hospital on Veterans Boulevard. Kaiser has already received city approval to significantly expand its facilities.

District and hospital officials, and numerous members of the local medical community, say the area cannot support an expanded Kaiser hospital and two other full-service hospitals, and PAMF's entrance on the scene -- with well-advanced plans and a forcefully stated commitment to build on one of its two sites -- has caused general unease among administrators and many medical professionals at Sequoia.

Dr. Druker said PAMF plans to choose between the two sites by late March, and to have much of its new facility operational by 2007, with the remaining opening the following year.

The medical foundation now serves about half a million patients in major facilities in Palo Alto and Santa Cruz, and in smaller clinics, including one in Redwood City. It pioneered a multi-specialty group approach to practicing medicine, with on-staff primary care physicians.

Dr. Druker said PAMF needs to build a facility to meet the area's demand. The foundation now has about 40,000 patients in the Sequoia district, and the Redwood City clinic is too small to serve its clients, he said.

According to the current plans, the medical complex will include:

** A full-service general acute hospital with 100-plus beds.

** An emergency room open seven days, 24 hours a day.

** Urgent care services and outpatient surgery care, operational seven days a week, 14 hours a day.

** Major medical surgical services, including critical care, cardiovascular, oncology, neuromuscular and orthopedics, and maternity.

** Medical offices housing PAMF and community physicians.

** A sophisticated electronic record-keeping system that will allow doctors and hospital staff to get full medical information on all patients without waiting for paper files to be physically delivered from one department or office to another.

A number of doctors and others in the medical community voiced concerns at the January 7 and earlier meetings that the PAMF hospital would not be open to doctors who were not part of the PAMF group -- an unwelcome prospect for private practitioners who worried that Sequoia Hospital would close if PAMF built a hospital in the area.

Dr. Druker said the hospital will be open to all qualified physicians; "there will be no cap on the number of physicians," he said.

The entire cost of the medical complex -- estimated at $300 million -- will be paid by PAMF, with no tax support needed, according to Dr. Druker.

PAMF is governed by a board of about 45 community members, a panel that includes medical professionals. Menlo Park businessman Duncan Matteson is chairman of the board.

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