Jody Jenner has an extra spring in his step these days.

It may be all those construction trailers parked on the Broadlawns Medical Center campus, and the state-of-the-art 27,000-square-foot emergency department now taking shape that has the hospital’s president and CEO whistling in the hallways.

Another milestone worth whistling about: On Feb. 23, Broadlawns’ board of directors approved an $11.1 million bid package for the second phase of the hospital’s makeover. By April 1, workers will begin constructing a 40,000-square-foot medical office building on the southwest corner of the campus to expand Broadlawns’ clinic capabilities.

The activity is all part of a three-phase, $45 million renovation and expansion program, which Jenner said is the result of internal changes at Broadlawns that have made the public hospital a financially stronger, higher-quality health-care facility.

“Our long-term goal, and we’ve talked about this at the board level, is really to be the best small public hospital in America, and I think we’re well on our way to doing that,” Jenner said.

Broadlawns receives approximately $45 million in property tax receipts annually to help pay its operating costs, but none of that will go toward the new construction. Because the hospital is using a combination of revenue bonds and private funding to pay for the construction, the projects will be completed without any tax increase for Polk County residents, Jenner said.

Although they’re few in number, public hospitals take care of a large portion of the public, particularly the working poor and those without health insurance. According to the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH), public hospitals make up only 2 percent of the acute-care hospitals in the United States, but provide 19 percent of the uncompensated care nationally.

In the black

Broadlawns has ended the past four fiscal years in the black, after experiencing multimillion-dollar losses between 2001 and 2006.

“Our solid operating results over the last several years allowed us to go in and borrow some money for our facilities,” Jenner said. Last fall, Broadlawns issued its third $10 million round of revenue bonds; the $30 million borrowed will finance the bulk of its construction.

Iowa Health – Des Moines has committed $1 million to the project, and has pledged to match $1 for every $2 in private contributions Broadlawns raises, or up to $1.4 million more. Other significant contributors include Variety – The Children’s Charity, which donated $865,000 for the pediatrics clinic to be built in the new medical office building, and $350,000 from Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino. The hospital is now seeking additional private funds through a capital campaign to complete the project’s third phase.

“We’ve got about two-thirds of the funding that we need,” Jenner said. “We still need another $15 million to complete (the renovations) and we want to get the community involved and embrace Broadlawns Medical Center. We really do feel that we’re a sort of a gem for the community.”

Broadlawns has improved on multiple fronts, said Jenner, who has led the organization since 2006.

“The quality of our patient care is exceeding national averages; we’ve got patient satisfaction that has improved significantly,” he said. “We’ve got an engaged work force, lower employee turnover than the typical hospital. Our financials are coming nicely in line. We really feel the community can be proud of Broadlawns.”

Meanwhile, construction workers have been busy installing drywall inside the emergency department addition. The $15 million project will provide a space four times larger than the current emergency department, which was built about 60 years ago.

Approximately 15 percent of all emergency room visits in Polk County come through Broadlawns’ doors, Jenner noted. “Between our urgent care and emergency departments, we’ll have about 65,000 patients this year, and those numbers are up about 13 percent from two years ago,” he said.

Construction is also creating space to accommodate state-of-the-art medical imaging technology. Early this summer, a 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine will be lowered through a large skylight opening; it will be the first permanently installed MRI at Broadlawns. After the new emergency department opens, construction will begin in July to expand the main entrance of the hospital, building it out into the present parking lot and adding a covered canopy for patients and visitors as they’re dropped off. Less visible improvements will include installing new chillers, emergency generators and grease receptors for the hospital. “We’re also going to be working on a better site design to get people on and off campus much easier,” he said.

Medical home

Comparable to the busy emergency department, the number of patients visiting Broadlawns’ clinics has increased by about 16 percent in the past two years. Though Broadlawns completed a reconstruction of the third-floor clinic spaces just two years ago, that space is now filled to capacity, as are the second-floor clinics.

That’s where the new medical office building, which is scheduled for completion in May 2011, comes in.

“What it’s going to allow us to do is to really build a medical home for patients,” Jenner said. The hospital has been working since 2003 to encourage patients to build relationships with their family doctors as their “medical home,” rather than using the emergency room for routine care.

With room for eight more physicians or physician assistants initially, the building will eventually be finished out to house a total of 16 primary care doctors in the areas of family medicine, pediatrics and internal medicine.

Once the medical office building is completed, the second part of phase two, an overhaul of the surgical department, will begin. The existing four surgical suites will be renovated and a fifth one will be added, along with 11 large pre-operative/post-operative rooms, nearly twice the current number. That project will be completed sometime in the early part of 2012.

“I truly think we have a paradigm shift going on internally,” Jenner said, “and we’re really trying to create one now with (the new construction) to change the way the whole community views Broadlawns Medical Center.”