Health
(2009-10-13)
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Flickr Photo by kathleenleavitt
A new hospital is now under construction in the fast-growing town of Issaquah, east of Seattle. It'll be King County's first all-new hospital in a quarter century.
The ceremonial groundbreaking this week -- just off of Interstate-90 -- represents a big success for Seattle-based Swedish Medical Center. It fought a five-year battle against competing hospitals in the Bellevue area to get state permission to build a new hospital. Overlake Medical Center also sought permission for a new hospital, but its bid failed. The suburbs beyond Bellevue, on the Sammamish plateau, are growing fast, and they include some of the wealthiest zip codes in the Puget Sound area. Swedish vice president Kevin Brown says there are more than 100,000 people in the Issaquah area.
The new hospital will go up in phases, starting with a five-story medical office building, and then the first wing of the hospital. Swedish says it's designing with current trends in mind, such as extensive use of electronic medical records and more emphasis on specialists sharing resources. In that way, the Issaquah campus may fare better than older facilities if federal health reforms require more cost containment. It joins St Anthony's Hospital in Gig Harbor as the only two new hospitals allowed by the state in recent decades in the Puget sound region. © Copyright 2012, KPLU
