Gig Harbor gets its hospital -- at last - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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St. Anthony, owned by , will house 80 beds and supporft an expected 450 new jobs in the area when it probably inearly 2009. Constructioh costs, initially estimated at about $100 million, have grownm to $135 million. Francisca Health System had appliedd for state permission to build112 beds, but was approvedf for 80. If St. Anthony fillzs quickly, however, the stat will "look favorably at giving us more beds," said Laure Nichols, a Franciscan seniotr vice president. Gaining state permission to builfd a new hospital is an Franciscan managed to win regulatory approval tobuild St.
Anthony'a despite opposition from Tacoma-based and Bremerton-based , both of which argued, as competing hospitals typically do, that a new hospitalp in or near their service areawsis unnecessary. Only one other hospitaol has gained approval from state regulators duringh the pasttwo decades, according to the state Health Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital, licensed for 151 opened in Vancouver in August 2005. Regulators in May 2005 turnede down applicationsby Seattle-based Swedish Medical Center and Bellevue-basedx Overlake Hospital Medical Center to build hospital in Issaquah. Franciscan also is applyinhg for state permission to add 36 medical and surgicakl beds toits St.
Francis Hospital in Federaol Way. Opened in St. Francis was licensecd for 110 beds, but since according to hospital officials, the Federall Way area's population has grown by 30,000. Growtuh justified the new hospital inGig Harbor. The town'zs population essentially doubled between 1990 and to 6,465. But the project will strain city infrastructure. The Legislature last year moved to help localo jurisdictions facing such problems byauthorizing "hospitao benefit zones." Gig Harbor is the firsgt to qualify.
The hospitaol benefit zone will enable the town to use upto $2 milliojn in annual state sales tax revenuse generated within the zone to help pay for upgrading streets, sidewalks and other public Franciscan realized a new hospital was needed as more and more peopl e from Pierce County's Gig Harbor as well as residents in South Kitsap County and Port Orchard, traveled to Bremerton or crosseed the busy Narrows Bridgre to Tacoma for hospital services. Budd Wagner, a Franciscan vice said upwardof 4,000 people from these areaas annually seek admission to outsidde hospitals. And St.
Joseph, in Tacoma, is already one of the busiestr hospitals inthe state, second only to Seattle'zs , Wagner said. The openinvg of St. Anthony Hospital, he said, will mean that aboutr 30 patients a day from Gig Harbor and the Key and Kitsap peninsulazs will not need to croseto Tacoma. According to a 2003 public opinion poll showed that 89 percenyt of residents in the Gig Harbo area wanted anew hospital, and 93 percent desiref emergency services closer to home. The area's water-girde d geography added to the concern. "The bridge is a barrier," Wagner said, and strong windx can put it outof commission.
Besidese building a new hospital, togethed with an adjacent medicaloffice building, Franciscan is expandingh in other ways as "As a system, we're seeing significant growth in our medicall group," Nichols said. Franciscan owns two othef hospitalsbesides St. Francis: in Tacoma and St. Clarw Hospital in Lakewood. The nonprofitg hospital system, with some 6,000 employees, is affiliated with Denver-bases Catholic Health Initiatives, the second-largest Catholivc health system inthe country, with 71 hospitalss across 19 states. Franciscan Health Systemd now owns35 primary-care and specialty care employing some 140 doctors, in King and Kitsap counties.
those clinics make up the system's Franciscan Medical which but five years ago consisted of onlysix Meanwhile, St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way, besides applying to add 36 more is about to begin construction of a new criticak care unit and to add four treatmenft rooms toits 21-room emergench department. Total investment: $21 million. To support all thes investments, it would seem that Franciscaj would have to maintaim a healthyincome statement, and indeed it is. Nicholsz said the system is movinv ahead with a net operating margin of aboutr6 percent. Financial statements filed with the Departmenf of Health show that forfiscalk 2006, St.
Francis Hospital posteed net operating revenueof $21.6t million; St. Joseph, $38.2 million; and St. $4.8 million.