Kadlec Regional Medical Center
Kadlec Regional Medical Center is proud to celebrate more than 70 years of caring for the region. In recent years, Kadlec has enjoyed impressive growth in the number of patients it sees from the Tri-Cities as well as patients referred to Kadlec for care from nearby communities such as Walla Walla, Pendleton, Hermiston, and Prosser.
Much of that growth is fueled by specialty services such as cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology, neurosurgery, and the region’s only neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for high-risk newborns. Kadlec is home to the Northwest’s first accredited Chest Pain Center and the only hospital in the region providing comprehensive cardiology services, able to treat heart attack patients with balloon angioplasty, stents, and open heart surgery. Kadlec is also certified as a primary stroke center by the Joint Commission and the hospital’s technology is unmatched, including an all-digital outpatient imaging center.
Kadlec’s hospital medical staff includes intensivists, pediatric hospitalists, and adult hospitalists. These specialists are onsite 24/7, offering hospitalized patients important critical care.
Kadlec Clinic also continues to bring primary and specialty care physicians to neighborhoods throughout the Tri-Cities and surrounding region. Kadlec Clinic currently has more than 150 providers and has expanded its clinical presence into Prosser, Hermiston, and Pendleton within the past 18 months.
Kadlec has instituted systems for smooth transfer of patients in outlying areas and enhanced connectivity between the hospital and physician offices. Kadlec’s K-Chart electronic record system provides patients with easy, secure access to their own personal medical information.
Expansion of the hospital facility continues with the ongoing renovation of Kadlec’s NICU. Each year, hundreds of babies from throughout the region need the specialized care provided by this NICU – the region’s only Level III unit. In 2014, a new, larger unit opened largely thanks to donors to Kadlec Foundation. The Kadlec NICU recently celebrated 30 years of providing exceptional care for the most exceptional babies. Some of those exceptional babies are now raising their own families in the Tri-Cities region.
A new specialty physician medical office building adjacent to the main campus was opened in 2013; it houses most Kadlec specialists in one location, providing convenient access to patients.
The innovative Kadlec Healthplex opened in 2014, bringing more than 20 outpatient hospital programs and services to one central location.
The coming year will bring the start of construction of 4 floors of acute care patient rooms on Kadlec’s River Pavilion. This will raise the height of the building to ten stories. Kadlec will also break ground in the coming year on a 600 space parking garage on the medical center campus.
Off the medical center campus, Kadlec is operating the region’s first free-standing emergency department, located on Highway 395 and 19th in Kennewick. This service is staffed 24/7 by board certified emergency room physicians and nurses, and emphasizes getting patients seen quickly, and if necessary, seamlessly admitted into the hospital. In December 2013, Kadlec opened a new urgent care center on Clearwater Avenue in central Kennewick.
Kadlec is a key partner in several projects to help supply workers in the health care field. The Columbia Basin College (CBC) Health Science Center, located adjacent to the Kadlec campus, provides education and training for nurses and other health professionals. Kadlec contributed $2 million toward the construction of the complex. More recently, Kadlec announced it will contribute another $3 million to help fund a second CBC building that will expand additional medical education opportunities in the region. In early 2014, a new medical education facility for Washington State University (WSU) health care students opened in a building owned by Kadlec. The space, which Kadlec will rent to WSU for $1 a year, has a value of about $2.4 million over the course of the 20-year agreement. Kadlec has also committed $18 million to fund an endowment for WSU to train and develop advanced practice nurses.
Kadlec culminated years of work to develop a family medicine residency training program in conjunction with the University of Washington. Kadlec will welcome its first group of residents in the summer of 2015, as it helps to increase the supply of family practice physicians, especially in rural areas.
In addition to its vital mission to serve patients, Kadlec has become an important economic asset to the region. Its employee base has more than doubled since 1999 to over 2,800, generating an annual payroll of more than $150 million. The number of patients who come to Kadlec for care from outside the region has also doubled, and Kadlec continues to recruit physicians to the community to support the growing demand for health services. Kadlec Regional Medical Center and its affiliated physicians provide over $30 million a year in uncompensated care.
In June, 2014, Kadlec affiliated with Providence Health & Services, a not-for-profit health system comprised of 34 hospitals in five western states. Kadlec has joined a secular, non-religious division of Providence.
For more information on Kadlec go to www.kadlec.org.