If you live in or near Bellingham, you’ve probably been to the PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center; since 1966, many in our community have relied on “St. Joe’s,” as it’s affectionately known, for lifelong care across a wide spectrum of needs. Now, that spectrum is expanding, thanks to a massive, multi-year community effort and more than $400 million in funding—including nearly $100 million in private donations.
“For someone in my area of responsibility, you typically can never build big enough, because the population will continue to grow,” says Chief Hospital Executive Charles Prosper, noting that Whatcom County has grown from around 75,000 people when St. Joseph was built to over 225,000 today. “The healthcare demand continues to grow, and we recognize that we will be the hospital serving Whatcom County and beyond. That’s an awesome responsibility, and so we owe it to the residents of Whatcom and the surrounding counties to have the best possible physical environment and care environment for our doctors and for our nurses and other caregivers.”
I was lucky enough to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the medical center’s current facilities, with a sneak peek of the structural, logistical, and technological upgrades to come. Here’s a very brief overview of a lot of improvement and innovation on the horizon!
THREEFOLD PLAN
While their overall effect will be practically all-encompassing, the improvements to St. Joseph can be sorted into three main initiatives: building the Peter Paulsen Pavilion; increasing support for medical staff; and investing in technological upgrades and medical innovation.
PETER PAULSEN PAVILION
If you stand at the edge of the parking lot looking at the current main entrance to St. Joseph’s, you’ll see two teal structures to the left and right of the building, almost at the road. Those are the cornerstones of what will become Peter Paulsen Pavilion, an extension to the medical building that will add 120,000 square feet of space over six floors and dramatically improve St. Joe’s Emergency Department and Women’s and Children’s Services.
In addition to bringing 142 new private patient rooms and a 400- stall parking garage (which was recently finished), there will be renovations throughout the existing buildings, resulting in a significantly more efficient, effective, and thoughtfully-designed experience for both patients and caregivers.
To ensure the design of the spaces works with how caregivers will actually use them, Prosper went beyond soliciting ideas from hospital staff, and actually gave them a life-sized model to test out and give feedback on.
“We built these full-size rooms with full-size equipment, and then our caregivers and our doctors put Post-It notes all over the place. ‘Move this.’ ‘Get rid of that.’ ‘Toss that,’” he says. “Our caregivers and our providers, our physicians, have had their personal imprint on the design of these rooms and the design of this pavilion…it was very much a collaborative effort.”
The overhaul of the Emergency Department is especially anticipated by many on the staff. Currently, emergency medicine is spread out over two disconnected wings, the north and south sides. This has meant long walks for caregivers, a confusing setup for visitors, and siloed resources.
“We just don’t like going over to [the north] side because it’s farther away from CT, it’s farther away from X-ray, it’s kind of a little bit farther away from everything,” says Emergency Department Nurse Manager Nichole Boyer. “It feels like you’re a little disconnected.”
Also disconnected? The current helipad, which is at ground level some distance from the main medical center. The new building will include a rooftop helipad that offers easy access to the main floors of the hospital.
“We’re very excited about the helipad,” says Airlift Northwest Flight Nurse Brian Prince, “because we do have a ground leg that happens when we land here. We typically use Cascade Ambulance, which often takes an additional 10 minutes of time to get the patient into the air…So that’s going to be a huge benefit for the patient, just as far as expediting them getting to the definitive care that they need.” The elimination of the ambulance leg will also significantly reduce the cost of the transfer.
The new building will also improve women and children’s care. Currently, pediatrics and women’s health are on different floors, and the birthing center hasn’t been significantly updated since it was built. With nearly 2000 births each year, the need is outgrowing the space. The new Women and Children’s Center will improve patient emotional experience, visitor experience, and care outcomes by enabling the pediatric and women’s health teams to work together. The space will also allow new mothers to “room in” with premature infants, which was previously hard to accommodate.
Image courtesy of PeaceHealth
PHYSICIAN WELLBEING PROGRAM & THE INSTITUTE FOR NURSING EXCELLENCE
The physical build is a huge focus of this endeavor, of course, but any patient will tell you that the number one thing that makes all the difference in a medical experience is the people: the doctors, surgeons, and nurses. PeaceHealth recognizes that, and they’re showing their support and appreciation for their medical staff with two new programs. Both are already under way and showing positive results.
The Physician Wellbeing Program, managed by registered nurse Lola Hannah, is focused on improving caregivers’ physical and emotional health, increasing their joy in the work they do, and creating a “culture of wellbeing” at St. Joseph’s. The core purpose is to support caregivers, but an expected knock-on effect is an even higher standard of patient care.
“My position is a gift from the community,” says Hannah, “an expression of real love and affection for the work that [these caregivers] do.”
The Institute for Nursing Excellence, which encompasses investments in advanced nursing education and professional development for the entire nursing staff, has a similar dual purpose: to support nurses in expanding their skills and finding satisfaction in their work, while also improving the already-excellent care they offer to their patients.
One clear mark of the Institute’s success is the birthing center’s increased ability to care for premature infants. In the past, infants born before 34 weeks gestation would have to be sent to Seattle or Everett for care. Now, St. Joseph’s can keep infants born at 32 weeks or later, and they’re hoping to get that down to 30 in the future. This has a major impact on families who would otherwise be split between their baby in the NICU in Seattle and their lives in Whatcom. Plus, it lowers the amount of time an infant at UW or Providence needs to stay there before being transferred back up to be closer to home.
“We were actually just able to reunite a family who had been driving to Seattle every day,” says Alex Taylor, who manages the special care nursery and the pediatric unit, and who’s managing the Women’s and Children’s Services implementation. “We were able to accept that back transfer, and now that family gets to drive a mile to come see their baby.”
INVESTMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
Throughout the medical center, PeaceHealth is investing in technological improvements and medical innovation—this includes everything from adding more cath labs with cutting-edge equipment to major adjustments to the behavioral health program (which covers everything from psychiatric to substance use disorders).
Executive Director Jerry Marschke showed me around the current cardiovascular department, which was built in 2003 and has since grown from one cath lab to four; the new building will make space for a fifth, in addition to upgrading the technology throughout the department.
“The community continues to grow and expand,” he says. “As patients get older, they may need advanced heart care.” They’re getting exceptional care now, but the expansion will enable PeaceHealth’s cardiovascular team to offer even better care to even more patients.
As for behavioral health (which is only one of the many other departments where these investments are expected to lead to improved outcomes), Nurse and Program Director Mullane Harrington gave me a run-down of the changes already underway, and expressed particular excitement about one major upcoming change to PeaceHealth’s response to Whatcom’s opioid problem.
“In Whatcom County, we have the highest rates of non-fatal opioid overdoses in the state of Washington,” Harrington says, noting that the problem is complex and the landscape ever-changing, which makes coming up with solutions tricky. When we spoke in October she was on the cusp of a major project; a partnership between PeaceHealth’s emergency and behavioral health departments, along with outside organizations, to create a multifaceted, multi-agency response.
The plan, Harrington explains, is to “very intentionally offer medication for opioid use disorder in the ED, and partner as seamlessly as possible to get people into follow-up care within two days, sending them out with bridge prescriptions for Suboxone that will carry them forward on their personal recovery journey to the outpatient provider.”
This project, in combination with other endeavors like the new Way Station in downtown Bellingham, will hopefully lead to more consistent care for opioid use disorder, as well as offering a medically-supported, non- judgmental path out of addiction.
And those are just a handful of the many new developments under way at St. Joseph’s! A massive undertaking like this is impossible without widespread community support—something nearly every medical provider and PeaceHealth stakeholder I met during my tours reiterated. It’s clear to me that PeaceHealth intends to reciprocate that support tenfold.
2901 Squalicum Pkwy., Bellingham, 360.734.5400, peacehealth.org/hospitals/peacehealth-st-joseph-medical-center
NOTE: this project is truly enormous, and the tours I took were fascinating; there was so much that had to be left out of this piece. I highly recommend going to peacehealthimpact.org/whatcom or scanning the QR code to learn more!
