AMERICAN FORK -- Intermountain Health Care will be taking the American Fork Hospital to a new level -- from a level-3 care facility to a level 5.
That means, according to Ron Jones, operations manager for the health care corporation, American Fork Hospital will be expanded, enhanced and upgraded to a facility that can provide the care many patients now get by traveling either to Provo or into Salt Lake."A level 7 hospital is the highest. The LDS Hospital in Salt Lake is a level 7. Cottonwood is a five. Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, we're level 6," Jones said.
"Currently American Fork is probably a three-plus, which means probably 75 percent of the initial care is provided by family care physicians."
Bringing American Fork Hospital up to a level 5 service ranking will mean Intermountain Health Care will add cardiology services, probably a cath lab, oncology and radiation treatment capability, pulmonary medicine services and a gastroenterology unit.
A pediatric intensive care unit may be part of the mix as well as expanded surgical capability.
"A lot of what we'll do will simply replace old with new construction," Jones said. "We will be adding a north building, but mostly we'll solve some adjacency problems. We want labor and delivery and the women's center and the postpartum care all adjacent to one another. Right now, they're disjointed with the nursery right in the middle."
The proposed new north building will probably house Same Day Surgery, surgery, the transitional care unit and the intensive care unit.
The main entrance of the hospital will probably be moved to the south side.
Jones said "probably" for almost every plan because nothing is set in stone yet. Physicians, staff members and administrators are in the midst of a 90-day programming process with architects. After January, a six-month design process will get under way.
By the end of summer 1999, Jones said the corporation hopes to break ground on the changes. But until the end of January, ideas are being carefully considered and options are being sifted.
The only thing for certain is the fact that American Fork Hospital is in the middle of the fastest growing county in the state and must prepare for a burgeoning population with higher demands for medical care, he said.
The north county hospital is already dealing with some capacity problems, particularly in the birthing and nursery units.
American Fork Hospital currently has 2,000 babies born a year in the birthing center and normally has 20-25 babies in the nursery.
"We're building to anticipate the population for 2010. After that, the crystal ball gets really foggy and hard to read," he said.
Jones expects the expansion of the American Fork Hospital will shift some of the customer demand away from Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo as well as keep patients from driving to Salt Lake for medical care.
He isn't worried about a drop in the workload at UVRMC.
"We aren't in competition with one another. We've looked at the work load. We've developed a county-wide master site plan and asked ourselves, 'What does the patient need? Where does it need to be?' We know American Fork and Lehi will continue to grow. We have all the development coming on the west side, and we have Draper city coming in over the mountain. We need to prepare."