By Michael Ammann
President, Solano Economic Development Corporation
Current expansion of healthcare facilities in Fairfield, Vacaville and Vallejo demonstrates the faith this sector of the business world has in Solano County.
Currently, Kaiser Permanente, NorthBay Healthcare, Sutter Health, Touro University and the County of Solano are embarking on, or completing major expansion projects, totaling more than $1.3 billion.
Needless to say, these expansions will provide better medical choices for the residents of Solano County, and they create short term construction jobs and bring well-paying, long term healthcare opportunities for hundreds of local residents.
Kaiser will open its new state-of-the-art hospital in Vacaville in the spring of 2009. The four-story, 340,000 square-foot facility will have a 150-bed capacity - all private rooms. Included will be Vacaville’s first maternity unit.
Across town, NorthBay Healthcare has opened its new surgery center on the VacaValley Hospital campus, taking some of the pressure of a growing patient load off the system’s two hospitals.
With the help of Genentech, which donated $500,000, a new state-of-the-art emergency department is operating in the Vacaville hospital, complementing its sister hospital’s ER in Fairfield.
Kaiser Permanente will have two hospitals serving Solano County when the Vacaville facility opens next year. Kaiser’s Vallejo hospital has served the area for many years, and it recently underwent a $350 million expansion and remodeling project. The expansion provided 188 new beds, expanded emergency, surgery and radiology services, and a modern “green” environment that captures the natural beauty of the North Bay. Kaiser says its Solano County hospitals represent a strong personal and financial commitment to making the facilities “green,” and that both are “on a par with the greenest medical facilities in the nation.”
Sutter Hospitals and medical clinics also serve Solano County, and have completed $120 million in new health care facilities, including an 11-acre, $75 million Fairfield Medical Campus was completed earlier this year which provided enhanced technology, including a new nuclear imaging system, the first non-hospital nuclear imaging system center in the County.
Sutter also is working to open a new primary care facility in Vallejo. The new clinic, operated by La Clinica, would provide centralized health services for low income residents, and would cut down on the number of uninsured patients that Sutter now serves in the Vallejo area.
In Vallejo, Touro University is moving closer to the day when it will open its $330 million cancer treatment center as project one of the future “University Village,” covering 191 acres on Mare Island. This cutting-edge cancer treatment center will feature a 125,000-square-foot center housing one of the nation’s first combined particle beam therapy clinics. Touro is in talks with a major Bay Area University to be the clinical operator.
Solano County government officials recently broke ground on $97 million improvements on health and social services campuses in Vallejo and Fairfield. A third facility, in Vacaville, is in the design phase.
Both County facilities will be more customer-oriented. In Vallejo, the expanded campus will allow for an annual patient visit expansion of 18 per cent to 16,500 visits yearly. Fairfield’s campus will have 195,000 square feet of space, with adjacent buildings serving as headquarters for the County’s social programs.
NorthBay’s new “healthy” Administrative Center was occupied in May and includes a training and conference center, along with administrative offices, located on Business Center Drive in Green Valley. The two-story 69,000-square-foot facility provides NorthBay with a third healthcare campus in Solano County. It gives the Fairfield and Vacaville campuses needed elbow room to add new physician specialists and expand existing services.
There are plenty more healthcare projects on the drawing board, too. NorthBay is far along on establishing its Heart and Vascular Center for Solano County. When the program begins next year, NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield will perform open-heart surgeries and new cutting-edge vascular procedures. Currently, the nearest heart centers are at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa and John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek.
Healthcare officials recognize the importance of state-of-the art medical care to attract and keep companies in Solano County.
Gary Passama, NorthBay President and CEO said: “Companies and corporations looking to locate in our communities should know that their employees’ health care needs will be managed—and managed very well—right here where they live and work.”
John Ray, CEO of Sutter Regional Medical Foundation, said Sutter’s investments in Solano County demonstrate that “…we intend to do our part to provide high quality and affordable healthcare for the residents.”
Rose Calhan, Napa-Solano area manager for Kaiser added, “Our new facilities bring care to the neighborhoods where our members live and work. We’re proud of our new services, the new technology we’re offering the community, and the part our new buildings will play in beautifying the Vacaville and Vallejo area.”
All of these expansions and improvements demonstrate the healthcare industry’s realization that Solano County is a growing, vibrant area. The $1.3 billion commitment, coupled with the expansion of the biotech industry, make this Northern California county a showcase for these two economic sectors.
Green beer? Not likely anytime soon (we hope), but breweries are another story.
