Alaska's growing health care industry.

• Author: Campbell, Melissa
• Position: Health & Medicine

Alaska's health care industry reflects what is happening in the rest of the nation: sheer growth. The state's health care system is burgeoning, with most major hospitals adding on or remodeling this year.

Three Anchorage hospitals have each spent millions of dollars in additions and remodels. Providence Alaska Medical Center and the Alaska Regional Hospital both completed renovations and additions. The Southcentral Foundation constructed an addition to its primary care facility, located near the Alaska Native Medical Center. The foundation recently awarded a contract to build a new dental facility.

Other health care projects include a new hospital on Fort Wainwright, a new Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage, and a major renovation and addition to Juneau's Bartlett Regional Hospital. Health clinics also are going up in several villages.

Providence Health System Alaska is now the state's top private-sector employer, with a work force of nearly 3,400, according to the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Providence had about 1,800 employees just 10 years ago. For years, the No. 1 slot was held by Carrs and then Carrs/Safeway grocer.

The industry also is seeing some improvements and growth on a smaller scale. One example is with the Alaska Open Imaging Center, in the Mat-Su Valley, which plans to open an office in Anchorage by the end of the year.

The Imaging Center operates the state's only open MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanner. In traditional MRIs, patients had to endure a claustrophobic tube-like contraption for scans. MRIs, for example, can take detailed images that can show abnormalities in arteries or in the brain.

"People weren't able to go in it without a substantial amount of medication to knock them out," said Jeff Kinion, the center's CEO and a principle owner. "Some people would get so apprehensive about it that they would drop the idea of seeking care."

The open MRI scanner eliminates that feeling, he said.

The center also is one of the few...