Queen’s Health Systems confirms major West Oahu campus expansion

The Queen’s Health Systems has confirmed plans for a $38 million expansion of its West Oahu campus, the first of its redevelopment in the burgeoning community.

The Queen’s Medical Center-West is building a $15 million, eight-story parking structure with 540 stalls to accommodate a significant increase in demand at the 80-bed hospital, as previously reported last year by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

In addition, it has taken over two floors totaling 22,000 square feet in a connected clinical services center for specialty clinics and will turn the existing fifth floor of the hospital into 24 private rooms for a new medical-surgical inpatient unit. The build-out is estimated at $23 million and will bring the number of beds to 104.

Over the next two years, the hospital plans to bring in 12 to 15 more providers. It is expanding general surgery, gastroenterology, cardiology, neurology and sports medicine services and adding orthopedics/spine; ear, nose and throat; and outpatient rehabilitation programs.

Since opening in 2014, the Ewa Beach hospital has seen a substantial growth in both inpatient and outpatient volumes, with the latter rising by 20 to 30 percent year over year. It has the state’s second-busiest emergency department with about 64,000 visits a year.

The facility has “surpassed original volume projections from Day One and is operating at capacity,” said Susan Murray, chief operating officer.

“This is the fastest-growing community on Oahu. We will be equal in size to East Honolulu with all the number of homes being built out here,” she told the newspaper. “We’re doing everything we can to look for services that’s needed in this community.”

A site plan obtained by the Star-Advertiser in October shows a second hospital tower where the emergency parking is adjacent to an existing hospital building and another physicians’ building replacing an existing parking lot. Murray said those plans are “down the road” and will be finalized over the next three years.

“West Oahu is transforming into a vibrant community. This renovation will extend our Queen’s mission to attend to health care needs in West Oahu, broaden our ability to elevate the health of Native Hawaiians and the entire West community, and provide quality health care to all of the people of Hawaii,” she said.

Renovations are slated to begin shortly and be completed next year. The hospital said operations will not be affected during construction.