The Burlingame Voice

Mills-Peninsula Changes

The Mercury Times is reporting on changes to the San Mateo emergency room services:

SAN MATEO -- Mills-Peninsula Health Services will close its standby emergency room in downtown San Mateo and convert it to an urgent care clinic to avoid a state-mandated seismic upgrade that could cost as much as $80 million, the health care group announced.

The standby emergency department at Mills Health Center will close Dec. 1 and be replaced late next year with a facility that provides many of the same services as well as primary care, Mills-Peninsula officials said this week. The new Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame, which opened in 2011, has enough capacity to handle any extra emergency visits that arise from now on, they said.

This is never an easy decision--$80 million or make adjustments to fit under the letter of the law regarding what constitutes an ER.  Keep this in mind the next time you have to go to one.

Has the sun set on Sunrise Living?

My thanks to blogger Anne for the following update on the abandoned building at Trousdale and Ogden.  I stopped by to take a photo of it last week for a follow-up post, but Anne has done some of the legwork for us as follows

In spite of the inconvenience of also having a day job (sorry, Joe, but you were a bit whiny...), I have some information on the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility at 1818 Trousdale Drive: Initial responsible parties: Sunrise Development (925-743-9035) Trousdale Properties (415-771-5246) Michael Kutsin, Mithun Properties (206-971-5575) Construction was initiated in 2004 and halted in 2008. The Burlingame Planning Department contact is Ruben Hurin (650-558-7250; rhurin@burlingame.org). I'll provide more information once I have spoken with him. In the meantime, if any of you have been involved in similar endeavors, I'd be grateful for any suggestions for possible next steps.

Then I realized I had a photo already--taken in August of 2009!  Ouch.  It looks the same as today!

Hospital Demo

I once worked on the 15th floor of a downtown office building and had the chance to watch another building be built right across the street.  The birdseye view of daily progress was fascinating.  I think large construction projects are intrinsically more interesting than large demo projects, but the latter has some appeal nonetheless.  So if you haven't been by the old hospital recently, here are two view of its ongoing demise.

Hospital Playing Nice?

The SF Examiner has an interesting piece on the Mills-Peninula Health Services' assertion that the hospital in San Mateo doesn't really benefit from the Downtown San Mateo Association's work to maintain and improve its downtown.

Mills-Peninsula Vice President of Communications, Margie O’Claire, said the hospital wants the nearly $80,000 annual fee dropped to $25,000.

“This program is designed to improve downtown,” O’Claire said. “We’re all for that, but it’s not going to have the same benefit for us,” she said.

I'm not sure I buy that argument and it certainly isn't very good PR.  I'm guessing the hospital employees also benefit from a healthy, attractive downtown and that may help hiring and retention.

Silver Tsunami in B'game

There were two pieces in the Sunday SF Examiner about senior housing and new construction

In response to a massive projected increase in the number of seniors in the county, a new. 97-bed assisted-living home for the elderly is being planned across from the new Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame.

The Peninsula Health Care District, owner of the 1-acre plot at 1600 Trousdale Ave. where the home would be built, approved the plan last week and identified Aegis Living as the developer and operator of the proposed facility, district CEO Cheryl Fama said.

The second article noted some of the things that would need to happen first

The district has yet to submit a proposal to the city, said Burlingame Planning Manager Maureen Brooks. The area is currently zoned for office or medical uses.

“I’d really like to have people come together to have a thoughtful conversation about the best use for the property,” said Mayor Terry Nagel. “It’s a huge opportunity to do something that would really have value for our city.”

If the site is used for senior housing, Nagel is concerned that it might not be within walking distance to amenities seniors need and said some kind of shuttle service would need to be provided.

But I not following the mayor's concern.  1600 Trousdale is the one-story white building that is right across the street from the back of B'game Plaza and across Trousdale from the new hospital.  I can't think of a more central location with two grocery stores, a drugstore, a couple breakfast and lunch places along with many other service businesses.  Seems ideal to me.

Hospital Open for Business -- Finally

We've tracked the progress of the new Mills-Peninsula hospital for sometime here.  The Mercury Times is reporting on today's opening with a piece that highlights the seismic and high-tech features

At a cost of $618 million and 11 years in the making, the 450,000-square-foot structure is opening with a flourish after several false starts. Opening time is 7 a.m. Sunday, and the original, earthquake-threatened Peninsula Medical Center will then close down.

And goes on to note

Patients can order meals from room service using a pop-up menu on the 40-inch televisions in their rooms or by dialing "F-O-O-D" on the landlines. Every one of the 241 rooms is private, and many have a sleeper couch so family members can bed down in the room.

I had the chance to talk to a Mills ER doc this week who was less enthusiastic about the move.  The doc was concerned that the ER is much, much larger, but the staffing is the same and, in fact, due to the building's layout one technician is going to be pulled away from the floor to watch the waiting room.  We'll keep our ears open to see how it goes.

Hospital Opening on the Calendar

I'm doing a little catching up and wanted to be sure to mention the hospital grand opening.  The Daily Journal reported

Officials at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame have set on May 15 as a hard opening date for the new $618 million facility.

It will replace the old seismically-unfit facility that has served patients since 1955. An opening date has been a moving target. It was hoped it would open late last year, then that was pushed back to Feb. 13. When that day passed, officials decided not to publish a date until it was in stone, said Margie O’Clair, vice president of marketing, communications and public affairs.

Looking forward to see the end result from this effort.

New Hospital, New ER

I found the Fall edition of the Peninula Health magazine that just came in the mail very informative about the new Mills-Peninsula Emergency Department in the new hospital.  Here are a few excerpts from the cover article profiling Drs. Bresler and Argand and describing how the new ER will be funded and furnished:

• The ER physicians group has pledged a total of $200,000 toward the new facility, one of the largest group gifts among Mills-Peninsula physicians.  These efforts have been instrumental in helping us reach over half of our $75 million goal.

• The ER...will incorporate state-of-the-art cardiac monitors at every bed.  (It will also) have 40 percent more capacity to treat patients in all private rooms with negative air pressure, which will protect against the spread of infection.

• Sound absorbent materials and absence of loud speakers will make the new ER more tranquil.

• (The ER has been) enlarged by 42 percent to accomodate 50,000 visits per year.

High-speed Pork

Here are some interesting figures from yesterday's S.F. Examiner editorial titled "High-speed rail projects are about pork, not transit":

As it is, rail passengers in the U.S. already receive massive public subsidies. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the net government subsidy for airline passengers is one-tenth of a cent per passenger mile and a half-penny for motorists. That compares to 22 cents for Amtrak riders and 61 cents for public transit passengers. The Obama administration’s plans to pump billions more into high-speed rail will increase this already grossly distorted distribution of federal transportation funds.

And what a coincidence that three of the top contenders for high-speed rail funding just so happen to be located in the home districts of the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. High-speed rail, it seems, is more about pork than transportation.

For the math-challenged among us, 22 cent Amtrak subsidey divided by .1 cent is a rail subsidy of 220 times that of air travel.  As my imaginary grandpa might say. "Dats a lotta CO₂, Anson".

The other question I have been mulling over is what kind of security our shiny high-speed rail system might have.  I was in Spain the week after the terrorist train bombings in Madrid.  I've been on the Shinkansen train in Japan.  Our SF-LA line might not be a high profile target like the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, but it would certainly be more headline news than disrupting our pokey little Caltrain.  Will these stations have x-ray machines?  Will the TSA be out in force every day?  Are the stations being designed with this in mind?  Will the subsidy have to climb to 300 times that of air travel to make it safe?  Do Quentin Kopp or Speaker Pelosi care?

Hospital Lawsuit Dismissed

From the Insider column of the San Mateo County Times:

Lawsuit dismissed

ON THURSDAY, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge dismissed the last remaining portion of a lawsuit filed by a group called Peninsula Guardians, who opposed the construction of the new Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame. The center sits on land owned by the Peninsula Health Care District, the primary defendant in the suit.
Part of the lawsuit dismissed Thursday had alleged that the district improperly advocated for the new lease in connection with August's Measure V special election, in which 92 percent of district voters approved the $488 million construction and the lease.

The main part of the lawsuit was thrown out earlier this year. That challenged the district's long-term lease of land to Mills-Peninsula Health Services, which operates the medical center, so that it could construct the new hospital.

The district is rebuilding the Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame due to a state-mandated 2013 deadline for acute-care facilities to meet new seismic standards or close their doors. The new hospital is scheduled to be completed in 2010.

- Written by admin