Queen’s to expand services in West Oahu

The Queen’s Health Systems is planning an expansion that will double the amount of facilities at its West Oahu campus.

A site plan obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser shows a second hospital tower where the emergency parking lot is adjacent to an existing hospital building, another physicians building replacing an existing parking lot and a new parking garage to be built on a grassy area of the property.

“The Queen’s Medical Center-West Oahu plans to undergo a renovation project to provide more specialists and services for growing West Oahu communities,” said Susan Murray, Queen’s senior vice president for the West Oahu region and chief operating officer. Queen’s wouldn’t disclose how much it is investing in the expansion or details of the renovation plans, saying they are still being drafted. It would only confirm work on the parking garage is scheduled to start in early 2019 and wrap up in 2020. Hospital operations are not expected to be affected by the construction.

“Since opening in spring 2014, we have established a strong presence in the community, starting with essential services to support emergency care. It is now time to look at ways that we can expand our services to this growing community. We will continue to work with our neighbors to see and hear what services they are seeking,” she added.

Over the past four years, Queen’s-West Oahu has seen increasing inpatient admissions, despite a decline in inpatient volume statewide, Murray said.

“It has also seen significant growth in outpatient volumes. Emergency Department volumes among West Oahu residents also continue to grow significantly. This renovation will extend our Queen’s mission to provide quality health care to all of the people of Hawaii,” she said. “We will attend to health care needs in West Oahu, broaden our ability to elevate the health of Native Hawaiians and the entire West community and expand our scope.”

The 80-bed community hospital in the state’s fastest growing region operates an emergency room, women’s center and specialty clinics, and has services including inpatient and outpatient surgery, imaging, orthopedics and cardiology. It opened after the bankruptcy and closure of St. Francis Medical Center-West.

The hospital, with about 200 doctors, sees more than 60,000 emergency visits, does 150,000 imaging procedures, has 30,000 outpatient visits and conducts 4,000 surgeries annually.

Last year Queen’s opened the only pediatric after-­hours specialty clinic at the Ewa Beach hospital to care for West Oahu’s growing number of children.

Separately, Fresenius, doing business as Liberty Dialysis, which is not part of the hospital, has plans to double its capacity to more than 400 patients a week from 200 on the same grounds.