November 4, 2005

Let the construction begin

Regional Medical Center of San Jose breaks ground on $155-million expansion

Regional Medical Center of San Jose recently announced a $155-million expansion effort that will add several new facilities to the hospital’s campus, in addition to vital upgrades to existing hospital services.

An artist’s rendition of the new medical office building.

The Oct. 26 groundbreaking ceremony brought employees, board members and public officials together in celebration under a large tent on Regional’s 34-acre East San Jose campus, just northwest of Evergreen.

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, San Jose City Councilmember Nora Campos, Regional’s Board President Roger Knopf, Chief of Staff Hossein Habibi, M.D., Regional’s Chief Executive Officer William L. Gilbert and HCA Far West Division President Tom May shared a few words before gold-plated shovels hit the ground in unison to commemorate the groundbreaking.

“Regional Medical Center’s expansion will benefit residents of San Jose and Santa Clara County,” said Campos, who has represented the city’s District 5 since March 2001. “The renovated state-of-the-art facility will have expanded hospital capacity and street and infrastructure improvements for the surrounding neighborhoods.”

Regional’s overall expansion effort includes the addition of a new two-story patient wing; a four-story, 120,000-square-foot medical office building; and a new emergency department with rooftop heliport. In addition, the project will expand Regional’s intensive care unit, create new operating rooms, endoscopy suites, cardiac catheterization labs, new MRI facilities, dedicated CT and radiology areas and increased patient parking.

“These new facilities will provide our patients a beautiful, new place to receive care and provide our physicians, nurses and other support staff with state-of-the-art equipment and locale to practice a higher level of health care,” said Gilbert, CEO of the hospital since 1999. “This is truly an exciting time for San Jose as our community will continue to discover a variety of new resources and an even more patient-friendly environment here at Regional.

“It’s important to note that during this multi-year project, patient access and treatment will go unhindered,” added Gilbert. “While we’ll be asking our patients to please ‘excuse our dust’ during the expansion, we’ll also do our part to ensure that patient care is not compromised.”

Evergreen resident Phani Pinaraneni, a systems analyst at Regional, commented at the ground breaking, “The Evergreen area now has access to wonderful health care that we didn’t have before. I’m looking forward to the state-of-the-art facilities.”

Regional Medical Center CEO Bill Gilbert takes a moment to greet Dianne Tiernan (left) and Phani Pinaraneni, two Evergreen residents who work at Regional.

Dianne Tiernan, director of Diagnostic Imaging and Oncology, agrees. “It’s very exciting to have a new facility in our neighborhood. I’m looking forward to the new cardiovascular services and state-of-the-art imaging equipment.”
Expansion in past two years

Located at 225 N. Jackson Ave. in San Jose, Regional has served the health care needs of residents of the greater San Jose area for more than 40 years. The hospital has seen continued expansion in recent years, much of it within the past 24 months.

Currently, the full-service, acute care hospital offers a comprehensive array of inpatient and outpatient surgery services, women and children’s services, cancer care, critical care and general medical services with a licensed bed capacity of 204 patients. In addition, the hospital’s campus features an onsite outpatient surgery center, UrgentCare Clinic and Wound Care Center.

Late last year, Regional opened a neurosurgical program serving patients with injuries or illness of the brain. In May of this year, Regional was certified by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors as a trauma center, deeming the hospital fully equipped to treat patients suffering from the most extreme trauma cases.

Differing from basic emergency room care, Regional’s trauma center is the third such program serving Santa Clara County’s growing population.

In October, Regional began a new open-heart surgery program in partnership with Stanford University physicians. The Stanford Cardiothoracic Surgery Program at Regional Medical Center is under the direction of medical director Kai Ihnken, MD, a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon and professor at Stanford Medical School.

“At Regional, we are dedicated to the health and well being of every one of our patients,” Gilbert said. “This hospital has been a vital part of San Jose’s health care landscape for more than four decades and this expansion ensures that Regional will be able to provide the high level of care our patients deserve for the next 40 years and beyond.”

Regional Medical Center of San Jose is part of HCA, the nation’s leading provider of healthcare services, composed of approximately 190 hospitals and 91 outpatient surgery centers in 23 states, England and Switzerland.

For more information, contact (888)-RMC-8881 or visit www.RegionalMedicalSanJose.com.