San Antonio Community Hospital grew up with San Bernardino County

April 21--UPLAND -- It began more than 100 years ago as a community hospital, with only 18 beds and five physicians -- meant to serve the needs of a small citrus town.

As the region expanded, so has the role of San Antonio Community Hospital -- to a regional health care provider with a 279-bed medical center and more than 500 physicians. The hospital has more than 1,600 on staff and 300 volunteers.

San Antonio is now in the midst of its largest expansion -- a new tower, which will add a total of 179,000 square feet of hospital space, increases the hospital's size by 50 percent.

To the south in Eastvale, plans are under way to add an associated new medical center and make health care readily accessible to a growing city.

"We've grown from being a provider for a community to becoming a regional provider to many. Eastvale is representative of another effort to serve and better the community," said Harris F. Koenig, president and chief executive officer of San Antonio Community.

In 1907, Dr. William Howard Craig began the hospital in his town because he didn't want people to have to travel to Los Angeles to get to care, he said.

Through the years the hospital has continued to meet those needs especially in the key areas of growth in the Inland Empire, by adding to its network of care. It opened Rancho San Antonio Medical Plaza in Rancho Cucamonga and Sierra San Antonio Medical Plaza in Fontana in the last three decades.

The centers provide doctor services, which do not require a hospital -- so you won't have to go all the way to the hospital.

"We're still looking at opportunities to better serve people. The reason why this hospital came into existence was to keep people from leaving the area to get hospital services. As the area evolves, we need to continue to grow our services so that people don't go out of the area to get their services," Koenig said.

Hospital growth

Despite the expansion of the centers, the hospital had outgrown its facility, officials said. The hospital expansion consists of a new patient tower with 92 private beds including 12 for critical care as well as an additional 8,000 square feet for the hospital's emergency department, adding 52 beds.

The addition in the emergency department is critical, according to report released in 2010, there were 77,000 emergency room visits, making it one of the busiest in region. There were a little more than 15,000 admitted to San Antonio with patients being hospitalized an average of three days.

"We had to build the building, due seismic rules or else we lose capacity and we are already overstretched for capacity," he said. "That building will be able to better serve the community because we are going to have private rooms and a large emergency room."

It also means the hospital can continue to improve in the advanced technologies it offers, Koenig said.

"We don't think its reasonable people should have to go to Los Angeles or Orange County to get care. As the population grows larger, the number of services we can and should offer grows," Koenig said.

Currently, the primary service area for the hospital is 803,000 residents encompassing cities as far west as La Verne and all they way to Fontana on the east, Rancho Cucamonga to the north and Chino to the south.

The secondary service includes 443,000 residents in Rialto and Pomona as well as Norco and Eastvale.

For Upland Mayor Ray Musser, who works in the health insurance sector, having an expanded facility elevates the city's position in San Bernardino County especially when it comes to trying to attract new companies. Most recently there was a company that was looking to relocate 35 employees to Upland, he said.

"It's a big asset," Muser said.

That's wasn't always the case. When Musser had a heart attack at age 49, he had to go to Los Angeles to have his surgery. The hospital has since built a heart center, and in 2009 was the only hospital in the area with Tri-County Heart Attack receiving designation. The hospital is now also recognized by Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency as a designated stroke center.

"There is nothing better than to have a premier hospital, time is life," he said.

John Husing, Inland Empire economist, said San Antonio Community Hospital's transformation as a regional provider has significant impact for the area's financial health along with improving the well-being of the community.

"The health sector is one of the non-blue collar jobs that brings money into the region from the outside, and it's going to continue to grow because of Obamacare," he said. "It's a very powerful sector, and a sector that is being underserved in the region."

For every job that is created at the facility, another 100 jobs are created around the region to support those services, he said.

And in terms of employment, San Bernardino and Riverside counties have 30 percent more people for each health care worker than any other city in California. Part of that had to do with the speed in which the population grew in those two counties in the last decade, he said. Secondly, there wasn't enough health care workers training in this region.

From 1990 to 2012, the sector added 59,900 jobs or 2,723 per year. Husing noted that during the recession, this sector led the region in job growth.

Another benefit, the health care sector offers a wide array of jobs and a 2013 median income of $57,443, he said.

"The more it becomes the fabric of our business, the better off we are going to be," Husing said.

Expanding to Eastvale

Eastvale San Antonio Medical Plaza is the latest of San Antonio's satellite facilities. In early February, hospital officials along with civic leaders in Eastvale came out on a weekday to watch as the first wall was tilted up.

The project is comprised of two buildings that will be developed in separate phases. Phase I will consist of a 40,000 square foot medical office building, offering a combination of outpatient diagnostic services and primary and specialty care physician offices.

When hospital staff was looking for where to go next, it looked at a two-mile radius in Eastvale. "That was a big area that we felt there was a big need, both in terms of what is there now and what will be there in the future," Koenig said.

The medical center is centrally located to Norco, Jurupa, Eastvale and south Ontario,. All of these communities can be conveniently served by the Eastvale project and one of the reasons the site was chosen.

An additional 30,000 square building will be built as the needs are identified. At full build-out it will have 150 to 300 jobs depending on the services it creates.

It is expected to create between 75 to 100 jobs during the first phase, and 300 jobs when the project is fully developed.

A longtime resident of the area before Eastvale was incorporated as a city, Mayor Ike Bootsma said he was pleased San Antonio Hospital recognized the area was being underserved.

"It makes the town a little more complete," Bootsma said. "I'd love to get a hospital in the city but this is the first step going that way. This area is lacking hospital and medical centers."

Future of San Antonio

In assessing the community's need, the hospital identified three areas of priority: health care access, health promotion and education; and chronic disease prevention and management.

In the next three to five years, Koenig said, the hospital will continue its path of transforming, this time moving from a sick-care provider to a health-care provider.

"The need is at one level defined by the sickness we treat and the other part is looking at the need to develop health promotion types of services to help people get healthy," he said.

It will continue to evaluate areas where people can't obtain levels of health or can't gain access to the services they need to stay healthy or get sick care.

Also factoring in all of this will be the continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which Koenig referred to as "a game-changer that is required."

While there may be some disagreement about the whole system, Koenig said, the rate of increase of healthcare expenditures in this country is unsustainable.

"The demand for healthcare and the way we have provided sick care are two things are unsustainable," he said.

There are aspects of the ACA that is already starting to change the industry's view of providing sick care services to health promotion and prevention to try to keep people away from expensive medical services.

"From a volume-based mentally to a value-based mentality -- instead of trying to get as many patients in a doctor's office or hospital," he added.

After all these years, what has made San Antonio Community Hospital so special -- even though the facility has been strained -- is the people, Koenig said.

"It's our people that make a difference day in and day out. It's our people that are impacting people's lives at the hospital," he said. "I can't speak enough of the San Antonio Community Hospital team, they are the folks that make a difference here. It will be so wonderful to have optimal accommodations to match the sterling work that our staff does here."

___

(c)2014 the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, Calif.)

Visit the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, Calif.) at www.dailybulletin.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services