Alaska medical facilities augmented: Providence, Denali Commission, Indian Health Service lead expansion.

• Author: Stomierowski, Peg
• Position: HEALTH & MEDICINE

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Medical infrastructure continues to spring up and evolve in population centers around Alaska to keep up with the needs of the state's population. While a new hospital is on the drawing boards in Nome, St. Elias Specialty Hospital is treating long-term acute-care patients in Anchorage.

A notable element in Alaska's expanding network of community health clinics, according to Paul Morrison, health facilities manager with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's Division of Environmental Health and Engineering, is the number of clinics funded in recent years by the Denali Commission.

Almost since its inception, the Denali Commission has concerned itself with the primary care needs of rural Alaskans. It has identified a need for 218 community health clinics, and while 137 clinics had been built or were under construction by the end of 2008, Morrison said, clinics were being planned or designed in another 44 locations.

Hospitals in several areas, including Homer and Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula, have undertaken expansion and renovation projects in recent years, and community clinics have proliferated, often offering new service mixes.

PROVIDENCE IN ANCHORAGE

Newer facilities going up around Anchorage include a five-story medical building in Providence Health Park in the hospital's southwest expansion area. Construction began this year in the third phase of a Davis Constructors project.

In 2006, The Alaska Heart Institute moved into the newly opened, 116,000-square-foot Tower T in the $90 million first phase of that project, which included construction of a parking garage with 500 spaces and a skybridge connecting it to Providence Alaska Medical Center.

Phase two of the project, begun in 2005 and completed toward the end of 2007, reportedly at a cost of about $85 million, included the 45,000-squarefoot Cancer Center as part of the 108,000-square-foot Tower U medical office building; the new Hickel House long-term-stay residence, which replaced the old Providence House for housing out-of-town families supporting patients and expanded capacity to 40 beds; and a 133,000-square-foot addition to the parking garage, with room for 365 more cars.

The Cancer Center, which opened in early in 2008, includes a cancer resource center and the Susan Butcher Family Center. A small skybridge connects the cancer center to the southwest parking garage. Infusion, radiation therapy and oncology rehab are offered at the cancer center...