Newest Sentara hospital opens today in Virginia Beach

VIRGINIA BEACH

The move started around dawn this morning.

Dozens of ambulances drove south with patients big and small, transporting them to the city's newest acute-care center: Sentara Princess Anne Hospital.

Today's official opening of the $173 million facility marks a new chapter in Virginia Beach health care.

After more than three decades, Sentara Bayside Hospital will no longer provide inpatient care. It will keep its emergency department and continue some other services under the new name Sentara Independence.

Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital will close its neonatal specialty nursery and obstetrics unit and transfer them to Princess Anne. Virginia Beach General plans to focus more on olderpatients.

Of Sentara Princess Anne's 760 employees, about 500 will come from Bayside and 150 from Virginia Beach General.

"We're so excited we can't stand it," said Paige Crunk, who will move from Beach General to Princess Anne as director of women's health.

Maria Alburo, patient care supervisor at Bayside, told her colleagues there was little time to be wistful.

"If you need to cry, cry," she said, "because the last day, 5 a.m., you're up and we're moving."

Sentara Princess Anne Hospital represents a collaboration between Hampton Roads' two dominant health systems.

In 2007, Sentara Healthcare and Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System each proposed its own hospital for the Beach's midsection, where the population was expected to grow and both systems already had outpatient centers. By the end of 2008, their leaders had agreed to join forces to build a bigger, more comprehensive hospital.

Sentara is a 70 percent owner in the partnership, and Bon Secours holds the other 30 percent.

Two operating rooms and 34 of the new facility's 160 licensed beds come from Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center in Norfolk. Eight beds in the neonatal intensive care unit and six obstetric beds were shifted from Virginia Beach General. The remaining beds came from Bayside.

A diagnostic department in the nearby Bon Secours Health Center at Virginia Beach also will be part of the joint venture.

Both health systems will be represented on Sentara Princess Anne's advisory committee, responsible for reviewing finances, clinical quality, ethical standards and compliance with the not-for-profit mission. Sentara will manage the facility.

Officials estimate the new hospital will see up to 150,000 patient visits a year. That includes as many as 65,000 to the emergency department, which opened last week.

The 440,000-square-foot building has private rooms and bathrooms, a high-tech nurse call system, and eight operating rooms with all equipment suspended from the ceiling.

"It's so big, so spread out," said nurse Rachell Myhr, who will move to Princess Anne from Bayside. "Once I find my way around, it will be a whole lot better than I feel now."

About 60 employees will remain at Bayside as it changes to Sentara Independence.

Along with 24-hour emergency care, the facility will provide advanced imaging, a screening laboratory, physical therapy, infusion therapy and a six-bed certified sleep center. Emergency Physicians of Tidewater will continue to staff the center.

Emergency department traffic there is expected to decrease from about 38,000 patients a year to 34,000 or fewer.

Sentara plans to enlarge the infusion center and renovate the emergency department and radiology area - projects slated to begin in October.

Officials also are considering expanding the sleep laboratory to eight beds. Other departments will be shuffled, and three floors will be used for corporate office space.

Sheldron Worthy said he didn't know quite what to expect, but was happy to stay put.

"This is my home down here," the Bayside emergency department nurse said. "The home is staying."

Not everyone is happy with the new plan, however.

Roberta Snyder said it was wrong to leave the neighborhood without an inpatient hospital.

"Why take from one community and put it in another community?" said Snyder, 59, who lives in the Cypress Point area near Bayside.

Virginia Beach General Hospital's changes also drew some objections earlier this year, with a physician collecting more than 670 signatures on electronic petitions protesting the closure of the obstetrics department.

The hospital will continue to be the Beach's Level III trauma center and tertiary care hospital, with stroke and heart programs. Leaders are working on expanding cardiac rehabilitation services and developing a master plan that will include the future of the space formerly used for women's services.

"We continue to plan for growth in the clinical services that are especially important to an older demographic," the hospital's president, Dr. Raymond Troiano, said in an email.

After 22 years at Virginia Beach General, Crunk delayed her emotional goodbye until her final days there.

"It's sad because it's like leaving a family," the director of women's health said. "We're making a new family here."

Amy Jeter, (757) 446-2730, amy.jeter@pilotonline.com