Phoenix hospital is changing services

Jodie Snyder
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 13, 2007 12:00 AM

Come June 1, Phoenix Memorial Hospital no longer will be a general hospital.

The hospital, one of south-central Phoenix's community foundations, will turn into a campus that could offer services such as long-term care and rehab facilities.

Patients who come to the hospital to be treated for broken arms or heart attacks either will be seen in a new urgent-care center there run by Maricopa Integrated Health System, which owns the county hospital, or transferred for emergency care five miles away.

Abrazo Health Care, a Nashville-based for-profit hospital chain, said it is making the move to "right-size" the hospital because it is treating fewer patients, and most of its patients come for primary care or urgent care.

The move comes as most Valley hospitals are expanding and hospital beds are at a premium. But Phoenix Memorial, 1201 S. Seventh Ave., has only 45 to 50 patients a day, even though it is licensed for more than 200 beds.

Not enough physicians admit patients to the hospital, said Dan Ausman, Abrazo's president.

"The people who put patients in the hospitals are their physicians," he said. "Physicians have their own allegiances to specific hospitals."

Abrazo tried to bring in more doctors but wasn't very successful. He also contracted with MedPro Physician Group, which also provides the medical staff for Maricopa Medical Center. MedPro doctors preferred sending patients to Maricopa, Abrazo officials said.

Now, Maricopa and MedPro will run the urgent-care center that will replace Phoenix Memorial's emergency department.

Phoenix Memorial also has experienced an erosion of the community's trust, according to Rep. Cloves Campbell Jr., D-Phoenix.

Campbell, who grew up in the area, remembered when the hospital was seen as a beacon of care and employment for Phoenix African-Americans. The hospital started in 1935, when African-Americans basically were banned from living north of the Salt River.

"Now, if people had their druthers, they would go to St. Joe's or Good Sam," he said, referring to other downtown hospitals St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center and Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center.

"They (Phoenix Memorial officials) have always been committing to improving the hospital and nothing has ever been done. There have been lots of doctors leaving. This has been happening over the last 15 to 20 years. It is not anything new."

Campbell told Abrazo officials they had to do a better job in reaching out to the community.

In 2001, Abrazo learned that the hard way. About 14 months after it acquired Phoenix Memorial, Abrazo announced it was going to close its emergency department and maternity ward and turn the hospital into a specialty surgery hospital. The community rallied and fought back through marches, protests and intervention by legislators and other elected officials.

This time around, however, Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor, D-Phoenix, one of its harshest critics, supports the change.

Taylor said she likes the idea of a lot of different services being available at the old hospital. She also is encouraged that two of the area's most-needed services, prenatal services and urgent care, will remain intact.

But other earlier critics still remain skeptical.

Carlene Danis, chief executive officer of Jesse Owens Urgent Care, which is about five miles away from the hospital, usually sends five patients a day to Phoenix Memorial for critical care. Danis said she hadn't heard anything about the changes and was concerned about patients who had to be transported farther away.

Maricopa, which will run its urgent-care center in conjunction with its longstanding south Phoenix clinics, expects to have 12,000 to 15,000 urgent-care visits a year at the Phoenix Memorial site.

Ausman said he had no estimate on how many of those patients might have to be transported to another hospital's emergency department.

The hospital has about 25,000 emergency-department visits a year, with an estimated fewer than 4,000 sent to other hospitals.

Despite Maricopa's greater presence on the Phoenix Memorial campus, Betsey Bayless, Maricopa's CEO, is adamant that it will not be the new home for Maricopa Medical Center.

Bayless and others want to move the hospital from 24th and Roosevelt streets to downtown Phoenix, but under state rules, the county hospital can't move three miles away from its current location. Phoenix Memorial is five miles.

Last updated on September 2, 2008