While Kaiser’s Napa clinic offers primary care services including adult medicine, chronic condition management, radiology and more, scores of Napa County’s approximately 40,000 Kaiser Permanente patients regularly make the trek to Kaiser’s Vallejo Medical Center for their health care needs.

In the fall of 2009, patients will find a new, 460,000-square-foot hospital at the end of the familiar route.

“We’re replacing services in the 1971 tower (with) this building,” said Robin Burr, a project director who works for Kaiser Permanente, adding that construction for the new project began in 2005. The new hospital, she said, will be about 195,000 square feet larger than the current facility.

With a price tag of about $500 million, the multi-story hospital will boast 248 beds, according to Kaiser spokesman Jim Caroompas.

Dotted with unbonded braces designed to absorb earthquake movements, the new site is compliant with hospital seismic safety laws put into place after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Burr said. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the hospital will also provide full wheelchair accessibility.

The new hospital’s entrance, located off of Vallejo’s Sereno Drive, will open up into the emergency department. The ground floor will also house the radiology department, an admitting area and landscaped, dining room courtyard boasting an artful water fountain. A surgical center and 24-room intensive care unit will take up the second floor, while the third level will house the rehabilitation center for patients recovering from traumatic brain injuries, strokes and other conditions, Burr said, adding that a nursing section will occupy the fourth and fifth floors.

Kaiser’s rehab department will also get a considerable boost with the new construction, including two gyms and an outdoor treatment courtyard, where rehab patients can build their strength on therapeutic stairs, ramps, artificial turf and other equipment.

“Bringing the outdoors in” with patient courtyards, plenty of large windows with ultraviolet protection and the use of nature-inspired color palettes will help provide a healing atmosphere for patients, Caroompas said.  

Kaiser is also taking an environmentally friendly approach to the project construction by installing floors made primarily of recyclable rubber, using other recyclable materials and building rooftops blanketed with reflective glass materials to keep heating and cooling costs down. Heat created by the facility’s generator will be harnessed and used to help heat and cool the hospital, Burr said, and Asian-influenced, drought-resistant gardens will be used for some landscape improvements.

In step with the electronic age, Caroompas said, a wireless computer system called HealthConnect will keep patients’ electronic medical records in check, reducing the likelihood of medication errors.

But for now, approximately 350 construction workers toil at the site each day.

The older hospital tower will be demolished in approximately five years. Caroompas said the Vallejo facility is one of 23 Kaiser hospitals in Northern California.