Board OKs buying surgery center Board OKs buying surgery center (August 12, 2005)

By Katie Vaughn

El Camino Hospital will buy out a physician-owned surgery center on its main campus, the district's board decided last week.

After an executive session at its Aug. 3 meeting, the board approved purchasing the remaining shares of El Camino Surgery Center, the 18,000-square-foot outpatient facility that has been in operation since 1991. Presently, ownership of the center is split evenly between the hospital and a group of 51 physicians.

Dr. Howard Rosenberg, one of the physician owners, said that as the partners have grown older, many have lost interest in retaining their shares, and that when the hospital expressed interest in June in buying them out, the vast majority favored the transfer of ownership.

"It was sort of a meeting of the minds, the hospital wanting to buy and the partners wanting to sell," Rosenberg said.

Hospital vice president of resource development Jon Friedenberg said the hospital has a strategic interest in obtaining full ownership of the center, adding that outpatient surgery is a service increasing in regularity and importance.

"More and more is happening on an outpatient basis," he said. "The service is increasing in importance in the marketplace and to patients."

Friedenberg said the hospital has no plans to make operational changes to the surgery center once it gains complete ownership. However, Len Doberne, a hospital physician, expressed concern at the meeting that the hospital will raise prices of services at the center once the transaction is complete. He was not satisfied with the board's statement that the facility will be run to be competitive with other surgery centers.

"I want to make sure it will remain reasonably priced," Doberne said. "My only concerns really are price and availability to the community."

The hospital hired an outside consultant to determine the fair market value of the center, and the board approved buying the facility at a price not to exceed that rate, Friedenberg said. He said the board has not discussed and cannot make public the specifics of the agreement, as the hospital is still negotiating with the center's partners. Nevertheless, final terms are expected to come soon.

"I anticipate the deal being consummated in the next couple months," Friedenberg said.

The board also agreed to fund an unbudgeted project: turning one of the hospital's 14 operating rooms into a state-of-the-art laparoscopic operating suite. At the meeting, Ken King, vice president of facilities services, said the hospital has seen an increase in laparoscopic surgeries -- minimally invasive procedures in which a small incision is made so a laparascope and other instruments can be inserted to view the inside of the body -- and that several surgeons have requested updated facilities.

The project includes the installation of special lighting units outfitted with video monitors and equipment, as well as a new nurses' station from which staff can operate equipment and get and send information. A primary benefit of the upgrade is that it will keep the majority of operating equipment off the floor and away from patients. King said this change will improve turnaround time and decrease injury rates in the operating room.

The new equipment -- which the hospital is considering for all its operating rooms in its new facility -- is budgeted at $163,000 and construction is budgeted at $130,000, with the total cost of the project not to exceed $405,260. Any equipment the hospital purchases for this project could transfer to the new hospital, King said, and hospital staff would rather not wait for the new facility to get the upgrade. The updated operating suite is expected to be ready for use in early spring 2006.

E-mail Katie Vaughn at kvaughn@mv-voice.com

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