There will be no mini-hospital with an attached emergency room at the Providence Mission Hospital Laguna Beach campus, hospital officials have told city officials.
Hospital officials said they made the decision after agreeing to study the idea and presented it to the city’s task force on Tuesday, Nov. 3, after their experts “conducted a thorough evaluation” of whether a small-scale hospital on the 22-acre South Laguna campus could provide a “sustainable alternative” to the existing model.
The decision to do the analysis followed a community study session in August, where dozens of residents pushed to keep emergency services in Laguna Beach — a Change.org petition as of Nov. 4 has gathered 8,330 signatures.
The residents said they worry about the long commute times to other regional hospitals.
The Laguna Beach hospital was built in 1959 after wounded city police officer Gordon French died in 1953 during transport to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach.
Providence hospital officials announced in January that they plan to close emergency and acute care at the South Laguna hospital, which state regulations require to undergo seismic retrofitting by 2030. Providence Mission officials said keeping the current facility afloat would be too costly.
In their analysis that they presented to the city Tuesday, hospital officials said they determined that a smaller hospital is not “a clinically, operationally, or financially sustainable model.”
The Providence Mission analysis done at the request of the city’s hospital task force, which considered capital requirements, projected patient volumes, workforce and infrastructure needs and ongoing operating costs, identified an estimated $160 million capital gap before accounting for the high ongoing costs of operating a hospital, officials said in a statement on their decision.
“We were disappointed to hear yesterday from Providence that Providence does not see a way to include a micro-hospital with a 24/7 ER in their Laguna Beach campus’s futureplans,” councilmembers Bob Whalen and Alex Rounaghi, who head up the city’s 16-member task force, said in a joint comment Wednesday. “A modern medical office building is fine, but we need emergency medical needs addressed.”
They said they had expected to see data, such as details about operating costs, supporting the health providers’ “unilateral decision,” but said that in the meeting on Tuesday, Providence officials did not share any of their analysis and simply verbally told the city leaders that it is not willing to proceed with a micro-hospital.
“Providence made clear to us yesterday that even if all capital and operating funds are addressed, Providence is not interested in operating an acute care hospital in Laguna Beach in any format,” they said.
The task force was established in March to develop an action plan after the announcement that the hospital would close and become an outpatient facility.
Providence officials said that, while a small-scale hospital won’t be possible — and in August, they said they have no interest in selling the property to another healthcare provider — they remain committed to the community’s healthcare needs and plan to meet them with an advanced care center. They have announced that the ER would close by Jan. 1, 2030.
“Despite significant financial pressures facing healthcare providers, including anticipated reductions in federal healthcare funding, Providence remains committed to investing in the future of healthcare in Laguna Beach,” hospital officials said.
The planned center, they said, will focus on healthcare services community members use most frequently. And it will “maintain connections to comprehensive inpatient, emergency and specialty care at Mission Hospital Mission Viejo and other regional facilities.”
Hospital officials said the current plans include an expanded urgent care model with operating hours based on patient demand. They also said they will seek the input of emergency medicine physicians to develop the model.
The center will also include advanced imaging options such as CT, X-ray, MRI, ultrasound, and mammography.
Outpatient lab services will include blood draws.
The center will also offer primary and specialty care, with rotating services likely to include cardiology, OB/GYN, and gastroenterology. The center plans also include opening an outpatient surgery center focused on elective orthopedic procedures, many of which are performed on the hospital campus today but can be safely delivered in a dedicated outpatient setting, Providence official said.
The hospital is treating an average of 17,000 patients a year.
Of those, 84% are seen and discharged without hospitalization; 73% arrived by private vehicle; and 2.5% were taken to the hospital’s Mission Viejo campus for a higher level of care, according to hospital officials. Providence has pointed to these trends as a reason for its new model focused on outpatient care.
And patients with acute issues such as severe trauma, a heart attack, or stroke are typically not taken to Laguna Beach; instead, they go to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo or Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, which are considered specialty centers that can receive patients with those conditions, officials said. Burn victims are taken to OC Global or UCI Health-Orange. Saddleback Hospital and Hoag Irvine are also specialty centers.
From the city’s perspective, the councilmembers said, the center is not sufficient to address the community’s needs.
“It is essential that our community and our transport system have a place to take patients facing emergencies — to a location that is not 30-50 minutes away in Mission Viejo,” the councilmembers said, adding that 60% of the fire department’s ambulance transports go to Mission Laguna Beach’s ER now and that all available data leads them to conclude that there has to be an ER in town.
“At this point, we have no known options,” they said, “other than seeing if other providers might be willing to operate an acute care hospital in Laguna Beach.”