By Richard E. Yochum

Posted: 12/18/13, 11:32 AM PST |

After a decidedly rocky start to the national rollout of health exchanges, consumers are left wondering about the future of our country’s health care system under health care reform.

Meanwhile, hospital administrators are adapting to a new environment where a national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients’ perspectives of hospital care are among the measures used to calculate reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid. With reimbursements now partially tied to patient satisfaction, ensuring a positive patient experience is imperative to our business.

Obviously, hospital administrators are dealing with several variables as we plan for population health in our community. So, one may wonder why hospitals, like Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center (PVHMC), are making capital investments now to expand patient services, instead of holding off until the dust settles on health care reform.

At PVHMC, we’ve always put our patients first and we’re always thinking about what else we can do to ensure the highest quality care and excellent patient experience.

New construction, including expansions, renovations and infrastructure upgrades are key to being able to provide patient care using the latest state-of-the-art technology, and offer the most critical services needed by the surrounding community, even during difficult economic times and an evolving health care landscape.

Recently, PVHMC broke ground on the new Robert and Beverly Lewis Outpatient Pavilion to meet the changing health care needs of our community. It will house five outpatient surgery suites, 20 prep and recovery beds, full service, state-of-the-art physical, occupational, and speech therapy and rehabilitation services, pre-admission testing, and administrative services.

This first phase of our master plan will expand facilities, including emergency room capabilities, create a new lobby entrance, increase services and improve the overall patient and visitor experience. As work on our master plan continues we will be increasing inpatient bed capacity including a new critical care unit and potentially inpatient rehabilitation beds.

Once completed in early 2015, the outpatient pavilion will provide additional patient services, and will be a huge boost to the local economy. Approximately 660 construction and contracting jobs will have been created. The facility will be LEED-certified, and we are making every effort to purchase construction materials and supporting services from regional suppliers to keep money in the community.

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According to a recently published online survey conducted by Health Facilities Management and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering of 612 hospitals around the country, health care organizations and hospitals are investing less in large-scale projects and focusing more on upgrades or additions designed to help them thrive under the Affordable Care Act with its emphasis on accountability, affordability and patient access.

This means an emphasis on infrastructure and technology, hospital-physician integration, and outpatient facilities. Successful hospitals will be those that can provide comprehensive health care services to their patients, while still adhering to the tenets of the ACA, which makes investment and growth all the more important, and timely, for our new facilities.

With the capital improvements we’re making at PVHMC, we can meet future inpatient and outpatient growth and capacity needs, and continue to uphold the “Three Rights”: providing the right things, in the right place, and in the right way.

We believe now is the right time to undertake these projects, and continue to provide the highest quality health care and best patient experience, as we have been doing for more than 100 years.

Richard E. Yochum is president and CEO of Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona.