$100 Million in Expansion for State's Medical Facilities.

• Author: PARDES, JOAN
• Position: Alaska

As America's baby boomers grow older and technological advances antiquate medical equipment at alarming speed, hospitals across the nation are working overtime to accommodate the present and future needs of their communities. With more than $100 million invested in current hospital construction projects throughout the state, several hospitals in Alaska are putting the pedal to the metal in an effort to keep services current and competitive with medical programs offered in the Lower 48.

"There is a greater need for health care than ever before and the health care industry, in general, is playing a tremendous game of catch-up," said Rand Kerr, chief operating officer of Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage. "It's not about development and growth in inpatient services, where you're seeing tremendous changes is in outpatient capacity."

Currently, Alaska Regional is in its third phase of upgrades that began in 1996 with two new medical office buildings and an open-heart surgery operating room. Last September, the hospital broke ground again with a $26 million project. Combined with other construction costs incurred in the past five years, the medical facility's total investment since 1996 totals out to $68.8 million.

"We're playing catch up to keep the walls and mortar up to date with the technology and services," said Kerr. "If you turn back the clock 20 years, what was then an invasive surgical procedure can now be done within minutes in outpatient surgery. What killed people before, we can now help with surgical procedures. We're saving lives here left and right.

"I'd take Alaska Regional against any hospital in the country," he added. "I just moved up here from another market and I'm just overwhelmed with joy at the level of services up here. The trend of going out of state for medical services is basically over. To go out of state is now an extreme rarity."

Scheduled for completion by spring 2002, the most noticeable renovation of this wave of construction at Alaska Regional will be a three-story atrium lobby, complete with glass elevators and a new patient admitting area1 The project will also create additional operating rooms, more space and equipment in the radiology department, larger rooms in the labor and delivery area, an extended parking area and a stoplight at the hospital's intersection on DeBarr Road.

"I think Alaska is getting used to dealing with nonstop hospital construction," said Kerr. "We call the policies and procedures...