Providence Tarzana hospital expansion to create 1,000 jobs

Hoping to expand health services into the community, officials with Providence Tarzana Medical Center announced plans Wednesday for a $624 million hospital upgrade to its patient wing, emergency department, and other areas.

The major facelift includes constructing a new, six-story patient wing that will feature 190 private rooms. Hospital officials want to improve its pediatric and neonatal intensive care units as well as the existing, 33-bed Women’s Pavilion. Construction is set to begin next year and is expected to be completed in 2022, said Dale Surowitz, Providence Tarzana’s chief executive.

The work will bring in 1,000 additional construction jobs to the area, he noted.

“We’re very excited about what we’re going to do,” Surowitz said. “We’re looking at how healthcare should be delivered in the future.”

About 50,000 patients use the emergency department each year, which is why expansion is needed to help make care more efficient, Surowitz said.

Plans have been submitted to the City of Los Angeles and a formal announcement about the plans will be made Thursday.

Providence Health & Services purchased the hospital in Tarzana in 2008, when it was part of the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center. The purchase came at a time when the San Fernando Valley had seen 12 hospitals shutter over a 15 year period. Tenet Healthcare Corp. had been trying to sell both the Encino and Tarzana parts of the campus for more than four years, but both facilities required expensive seismic upgrades. The Encino portion was bought by Victorville, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare Services, which specializes in acquiring cash-strapped hospitals.

Meanwhile, Providence Tarzana has since worked to expand its presence. Last year, specialists from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles announced their staff would partner with Providence Tarzana, to add more children’s health services in the San Fernando Valley so families would not have to travel downtown. The deal was described as the first of its kind in the Valley for both medical centers.

Surowitz said in addition to seismic upgrades to the medical facility, the front lobby and parking structure also will be improved.

Once completed, the hospital will have 244 beds altogether, Surowitz said.

“It will be very much patient and family centered,” Surowitz added.

Providence Health and Services operates 34 hospitals in Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

Source: Los Angeles Daily News, Susan Abram