Outpatient surgical center closes

Sutter Medical Center this week closed the outpatient surgical center it created only a year ago at the former Warrack Hospital in east Santa Rosa.

Patient numbers had declined by 20 percent, and it became more practical to consolidate the one-day surgeries at Sutter's main hospital on Chanate Road, said spokeswoman Lisa Amador.

"There are several reasons we need to consolidate our outpatient surgeries at the Chanate campus, but mostly it's because of productivity," Amador said.

"We don't have to fully staff an operating room at our Warrack campus when we have room for them at Chanate, and it's easier for doctors to care for their patients in one location," she said.

Amador said the move had nothing to do with the pending sale of Warrack to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital when Sutter closes its doors, perhaps as early as next year.

Warrack was a 69-bed, full-service acute care hospital when it was acquired by Sutter in 2001. In early 2006, it was averaging about 500 patients a month and had about 200 employees.

Sutter closed the hospital portion of Warrack in July 2006, and the outpatient surgery center on Wednesday. On Friday, moving vans removed operating room equipment from Warrack and took it across town to the Chanate hospital.

With those changes, Warrack is expected to see about 300 patients a month -- 11 a day, five days a week. An estimated 15 nurses and nurses' aides remain, and an unknown number of support staff.

Sutter could not provide the exact number of Warrack employees on Friday.

Warrack continues to provide several services, including transfusions, infusions and some diagnostic procedures. Those services will continue until the facility is sold to Memorial, Amador said.

"The campus is not closing," Amador said. "Patient volumes continue to be steady for pulmonary rehabilitation classes, infusions, transfusions, endoscopy, colonoscopy, pain management and outpatient rehabilitation."

The decline began a year ago, after Sutter closed Warrack's standby emergency room and its hospital services, and dedicated the facility to outpatient surgery.

Officials said then that Warrack would provide "one-stop shopping for ambulatory surgery patients" who could get their lab tests and X-rays where they had their surgeries.

But the number of outpatient surgeries declined by 20 percent, to about 100 a month, Amador said. Doctors became uncomfortable performing even minor surgeries when backup hospital or emergency room services weren't available and shifted their patients to the Chanate campus, Amador said.

Some physicians, who performed both inpatient and outpatient surgeries, wanted to see all their patients in one location, Amador said.

Sutter has also seen an overall decline in outpatient procedures at both campuses, as doctors have left the county and doctors and patients have drifted to Kaiser Medical Center in Santa Rosa. Kaiser now claims 70 percent of insured Sonoma County residents, Amador said.

Sutter on Friday could not provide the number of outpatient surgeries performed at the Chanate campus.

Sutter had begun dropping medical services at Warrack even before the outpatient surgery center closed on Wednesday. Three months ago, the laboratory, the diagnostic imaging and the respiratory therapy departments were shuttered. The pharmacy and cafeteria are also closed.

Some corridors and one wing of the three-wing hospital are empty -- doors closed, lights low and nursing stations abandoned.

Warrack's future remains unclear. Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital has not decided what it will do with the facility after the sale, said Kevin Andrus, a Memorial spokesman.

Engineering crews were at Warrack earlier this week assessing its physical plant and seismic safety, Andrus said.

"We've just begun the process of really starting to look at the campus," he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Carol Benfell at 521-5259 or carol.benfell@pressdemocrat.com.