Alaska Native Medical Center celebrates 10-year anniversary: building design promotes healing in holistic ways.

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As the Alaska Native Medical Center celebrates 10 years in its new facility, work is under way to expand the structure for the next 10 years and into the future.

"It's a 10-year anniversary for the building, and right now we are busting at the seams," said Hospital Administrator Daniel Jessop.

The Anchorage hospital opened in 1997, replacing an aging downtown structure operated by the Indian Health Service, which opened in 1953. Today, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the Southcentral Foundation, a nonprofit health organization of Cook Inlet Region Inc., jointly own and operate the facility. This arrangement made Alaska the first state to have all of its Native health services managed by Native organizations.

130,000 STRONG

With about 350,000 square feet and 150 beds, the ANMC serves more than 130,000 Alaska Native and American Indian beneficiaries. In fiscal year 2006, the 193 physicians and 495 registered nurses on staff saw more than 386,000 clinic visits, conducted more than 11,380 surgical procedures and delivered 1,405 babies.

Jessop said the building has worked extremely well, but the space needs to expand to meet existing needs and to keep up with the projected 40 percent increase over the next five years in Anchorage's Alaska Native population.

"We are challenged capacity-wise," he said. "Right now, we are planning for what the next five to six years are going to look like. We are going to expand." Jessop came to the ANMC in February from Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu.

NEW DIGS

Expansion will begin within the next several months. The oncology unit will increase from six to nine treatment chairs, thanks to the conversion of a conference room to doctors' offices. The change will allow for a 50 percent increase in oncology patient visits, from 5,200 each year to 8,500, according to Susan Childers, chief operating officer at the hospital.

"That is sort of a temporary expansion because while we are doing that we'll be looking at constructing a building attached to our hospital that will be for chronic diseases, which will be mainly oncology," Jessop said. The new facility will be a separate wing of approximately 7,800 square feet, and is expected to take anywhere from three to five years to build.

The ANMC will also gain space in two years when the Anchorage Native Primary Care Center, located across the street from the ANMC and operated by the Southcentral Foundation, moves into new buildings currently under construction. When that construction is finished, the ANMC will move some of its clinics into 25,000 square feet of one of the existing care center buildings. The move will allow ANMC to expand its surgery and ancillary services.

Looking further into the future, Jessop said the ANMC is working with architects to plan for a multi-level parking garage on the north side of the campus and a $123 million expansion of the existing hospital. Financing for these projects is yet to be determined, but he expects construction to begin within five to seven years.

The hospital also is looking at procedural changes, such as electronic medical records, to improve productivity and efficiency, Jessop said.

All of the plans for expansion should help support the hospital financially.

"It means turning around the operation," Jessop said. "We are absorbing a loss this year, but next year we plan to have at least a 1 percent bottom line, which is about $2 million, and then we are planning how to get to a 3 percent to 5 percent margin."

Approximately 40 percent of the ANMC's funding comes from the Indian Health Service. Third-party collections make up the remainder. Medicaid and Medicare each contribute about 20 percent of the operating budget and private insurers make up the remaining 20 percent. ANMC's annual operating budget for fiscal year 2006 was $236.4 million.

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APPLAUSE DESERVED

The ANMC has received awards for the quality of its care. In 2003 it became a Magnet-designated hospital--the only one in Alaska and the only one in the Indian Health Service. The American Nurses Credentialing Center developed the Magnet Recognition Program to recognize health care organizations that provide nursing excellence. About 4.45 percent of U.S. health care organizations have earned the honor.

The ANMC is also the only Level II trauma center in Alaska.

"Being a Level II trauma center basically obligates you to take anybody who comes through your door, whether Native or non-Native, for your emergency department," Jessop said. As a Level II Trauma Center, the ANMC must have all of its services available to the emergency room around the clock. "So that means you have to have physicians on staff 24/7, and support staff for all of those services that you offer."

To accommodate patients in remote villages, the ANMC developed a telepharmacy program that allows rural health care providers to dispense medications while maintaining complete patient records and oversight with pharmacists in Anchorage. When a patient brings a prescription to a village medical clinic, the local health provider faxes it to the ANMC. Approval by a pharmacist at the ANMC allows the local health care provider to dispense the medication from an automated machine in the village. The patient is then offered a two-way videoconference with the Anchorage pharmacist.

As a Native health care provider, the hospital was built to reflect the cultures of its patients. Alaska Native elders throughout the state were consulted during the design process to create a building that promotes spiritual, as well as mental and physical healing.

"It is a very beautiful building," Jessop said. "When you walk in, there is a big circle that you walk into. People come in and they visit with each other. These are people who come from other villages; they haven't seen each other in a long time. It is a gathering place. It is a place where they can also sing and dance."

Artwork by Alaska Natives is displayed throughout the halls, with more pieces for sale in the gift shop. In fact, the ANMC has the unusual distinction for a hospital of being listed by Fodor's online travel guide as a top place to purchase Alaska Native art in Anchorage.