By Phil Riske
Managing Editor, Rose Law Group Reporter
CHANDLER — Last week, we published an article about how Chandler has molted from a dusty agricultural town into a major global technology center, with the locating here of Intel and many other high-tech manufacturing companies. The city’s tremendous maturity also is attributable to forward-looking local government.
The same can be said for the city’s hospital, public awareness of which, research has shown, however, was low.
“We’re high-tech,” Chandler Regional Medical Center (CRMC) President and CEO Tim Bricker told a gathering of hospital supporters Tuesday night. That didn’t used to be the case.
In 1959, voters approved $650,000 for a 40-bed hospital. The facility had only 25 employees and 20 physicians.
The hospital in 1999 merged with Catholic Healthcare West, now Dignity Health, and by the end of 2004, the medical staff had grown to 540 members, and the medical center had 1,200 employees.
Today, CMRC has 2,000 employees, 900 physicians and 243 beds. And high-tech.
High-tech and specialized services since 2002 have elevated CRMC to one of the premier hospitals in the nation. The medical center has established specialties and employs medical staff for every service from open-heart surgery to a stroke center, from a wound center with hyperbaric chambers to neonatal intensive care.
Modern Healthcare magazine named CRMC one of the “Best Places to Work” in the nation, and the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation recognized it as a “Top Performer” for treatment of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia, just to name a few of many accolades the facility has earned.
More jewels will be going on CRMC’s crown in the next two years.
Tuesday night’s gathering was at the home of Tom and Julia Marreel, co-chairs of the “Building on Commitment” campaign, which strives to raise $5 million from the private sector to construct a $125 million patient town (Tower C) to meet market demands through 2018.
The new tower will modernize 1980s-era support areas, simplify public access and resolve stressed patient and employee parking needs.
To increase quality and efficiency and to provide capacity to grow needed service lines, the proposed expansion will provide approximately 96 new acute care beds to address the high demand for inpatient services. Because CRMC’s current ICU is severely undersized, the tower will include 32 ICU/CVICU, 64 Tele/Med/Surgical beds, six operating rooms, as well as a 43,000 square-feet emergency department.
Are you now more aware of Chandler Regional Medical Center?
For more information about donating to CRMC, contact Diane Abraham, president of CHW Foundation—East Valley, 480-728-3941.
