Tacoma hospital to increase bed count. Here’s what we know about $54M expansion
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- Tacoma General will add 65 new adult beds and four operating rooms after remodel.
- Permits filed are for portions of the $54 million project.
- Work begins in July with some units opening in August and project finishing next year.
MultiCare representatives told The News Tribune this week that planned upgrades at Tacoma General Hospital will bring 65 new beds.
The work is the result of Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital leaving its former space at Tacoma General for a new $480 million campus nearby.
Initial permits have been filed with the City of Tacoma for some of the $54 million project at Tacoma General. The permits describe a remodel of existing patient rooms in one section, adding exam lights, adding dialysis connection boxes in all rooms on the 6th and 7th floors, and additional power outlets in the patient rooms. Two “play” rooms will be renovated to become consult rooms.
Another permit calls for remodeling existing trauma rooms to create observation bays for patients, renovation of treatment rooms to provide treatment bays for dialysis and other minor upgrades. The work begins this month and the entire overhaul is anticipated to be finished sometime next year.
Some main units are expected to open in August, while additional inpatient bed capacity will open mid- to late-December, according to Alden Bishop, chief operating officer at Tacoma General.
“There may be a little noise, but none of our services are going to be interrupted,” Bishop told The News Tribune in an interview June 30. “We’re continuing to operate as usual.”
He added, “It’s not a lot of heavy construction. It’s mostly patching and painting, rebranding from the pediatric hospital into adult hospital (settings), so it’s not a significant amount of construction.”
He described the changeover as offering a good return on investment for the cost.
“We’re investing $54 million to expand adult care capacity at Tacoma General, adding 65 new beds and four operating rooms, and essentially it’s two hospitals for one: a brand-new children’s hospital, and then expansion built inside TG.”
Bishop added that the space overhaul will “allow us to cohort patients by type, so patients that are seeking cancer care will be with cancer-care patients, patients that are trauma patients will be with trauma-like patients. We’re also expanding some of our capacity for women’s services and some dialysis services as well.”
The work includes adding 12 new labor and delivery beds. “Our Women and Newborn unit has been operating near capacity,” MultiCare media representative Scott Thompson told. The News Tribune via email. Thompson noted the “12 new beds means more families can choose Tacoma General for their care. It also will enable us to accept more high-risk OB transfers from across the South Sound.”
The hospital’s growth has come with growing pains. Nurses represented by the Washington State Nurses Association recently went public with issues of continued understaffing in Mary Bridge’s neonatal intensive care unit, which remains at Tacoma General, amid an influx of infants in need of critical care.
The children’s hospital told The News Tribune last month that it “continues its efforts to recruit and hire experienced nurses for its NICU as well as across its health network.”
The day Bishop spoke with The News Tribune, he said Tacoma General as a whole was running at “109% capacity.”
“Like many other hospitals in the Puget Sound, if you show up to an ED and you need to be admitted ... you might get a hallway bed, or you might end up getting discharged out of the emergency department. So (the expansion) is really going to create capacity.
“Currently we’re just pulling patients up out of the ED to the next bed available, so we can keep up with the demand, and this allow us to get specialized units,” he added. “It will allow a better environment for the physicians and the nurses to continue to provide high-quality care.”
