Iva French, manager of the Gig Harbor Medical Park’s Day Surgery Center, in one of the operating rooms shortly before opening. MultiCare Health System opened an ambulatory surgery center at its Gig Harbor Medical Park at the end of January.
The day surgery center was part of MultiCare’s original medical park plans. The facility opened in 2007, but was denied a Certificate of Need for a community-based surgery center following an appeal by Franciscan Health System, which is building a new hospital in Gig Harbor.
The center, which has been shelled in as part of the facility’s construction, allows only MultiCare-based surgeons to perform operations there. In November 2008 the Washington State Court of Appeals reinstated a decision by the Washington State Department of Health that the facility didn’t need a Certificate of Need as a practice-based center, reversing a ruling by a Thurston Superior Court health-law judge.
The center currently offers orthopedics, urologic and gynecological procedures, with general surgery to be added soon and other specialties may be considered later.
Iva French, who has been involved with the project for the past three years, said the facility has the capacity to add more physicians and specialties as demand grows, and a shelled-in room can be turned into the fourth operating suite as necessary. With the three rooms, MultiCare could handle as many as 25 and even 30 cases a day once fully operational.
The Gig Harbor addition not only makes it convenient for local patients and for physicians who live or serve patients in Gig Harbor, but also helps streamline cases in Tacoma, French said — currently, some patients have to wait for a procedure due to space availability in MultiCare’s inpatient surgery centers. MultiCare has three other surgery facilities, including an outpatient one.
The Gig Harbor Medical Park ambulatory surgery center has state-of-the-art technology including computerized charts in the operating rooms. High-definition cameras, rooms designed to accommodate robotic surgery , hydraulic “boom” systems that allow for images like X-rays to be easily viewed, and private pre-op rooms are among the features. The OR lights are equipped with cameras so surgeries can be televised to another room for training purposes.
French was involved with the planning of the surgery center prior to her retirement from MultiCare, and was asked to come back as a consultant to develop the operational infrastructure and serve as an interim manager. She said they anticipate the center to be busy, especially due to the growing trends of noninvasive procedures that allow patients to go home the same day instead of being hospitalized. She said some surgeons will provide office hours at the clinic. “Ultimately, the patients will be able to get all their care here, before and after surgery as well as pharmaceutical,” she said.
Also in January, the Gig Harbor Medical Park expanded its oncology center to add radiation oncology using state-of-the-art equipment. The center uses RapidArc, the system delivers intensity-modulated treatments much faster than previous forms of radiotherapy, according to John Rieke, MD, medical director of the cancer center.
“That speed means that patients don’t have to sit still for as long during their treatment sessions, which means there’s less chance of body and organ movement so radiation stays clear of healthy tissue surrounding the tumor,” Rieke said. “The target area receives a full dose and there’s less danger to the patient.”
With the RapidArc systems, treatments that took 30 to 40 minutes in the past now take three to four minutes. The Gig Harbor Medical Park was only the 10th facility in the world to install RapidArc.
Mary Grubbs, the medical park’s administrator, said the idea behind the Gig Harbor Medical Park’s various services and facilities is to have seamless patient care within the building, as all the services complement each other.
“It’s a ‘one-stop shop’ for what patients need today and what they may need tomorrow,” she said.
