Regional News/West: Stanford starts four year construction of seismically sound hospital, and other news

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Stanford Hospitals & Clinics embarked on the four-year construction of a state-of-the-art and seismically sound hospital. The hospital broke ground on a facility that will add 824,000 square feet to the existing hospital and expand inpatient capacity to 600 beds. The project is part of a $5 billion renewal project at the medical center, which also includes expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. The organization is paying for the upgrades with hospital funds—including cash and about $600 million in bond debt—and philanthropy. A group of Silicon Valley companies, including Apple, eBay, Intel Corp., Intuit, Oracle and NVIDIA, has committed $175 million so far. Construction is scheduled to wrap up in 2017, with patient care beginning in 2018. California lawmakers imposed new seismic-safety standards on hospitals after the 1994 Norridge earthquake in Los Angeles, which rendered several Los Angeles hospitals unable to care for people injured in the quake. The Legislature has allowed a series of extensions on the deadlines for the work, allowing compliance as late as 2020.

—Gregg Blesch

LOS ANGELES—The Medical Board of California is backing measures to combat prescription-drug abuse in the wake of a report that found a link between physician-prescribed narcotics and overdose deaths. The board, meeting in Los Angeles, voted to support legislation requiring coroners to report prescription-drug overdose deaths to the board and to give the panel new power to halt a doctor's prescribing in some cases, the Los Angeles Times reported. The board also voted to create a task force to develop guidelines for prescribing painkillers. The medical board is charged with overseeing more than 100,000 physicians in California, but its president said in March that it lacks the power to identify those who might be overprescribing. Dr. Sharon Levine told a joint legislative committee that the board lacks the authority to use the state's tracking system, the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, to identify doctors who may be purposely overprescribing unless it is acting in response to a specific complaint. A Times investigation last year found that between 2006 and 2011, doctor-prescribed drugs caused or contributed to nearly half the accidental deaths involving prescription drugs in four Southern California counties. In its review, the newspaper reported that at least 30 Southern California patients died while their doctors were under investigation. While the board sanctioned all but one of those 12 doctors, in most cases, doctors are allowed to continue writing prescriptions after they are sanctioned.

—Associated Press

DENVER—The Mental Health Center of Denver's new Recovery Center, which opened last July, was recently awarded LEED platinum certification—the highest level of recognition under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. The center is the first healthcare institution to earn LEED platinum certification in Colorado. Based on sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality, a building can earn basic LEED certification or achieve three higher levels of recognition: silver, gold and platinum. LEED-certified buildings are designed to lower operating costs and increase asset value; reduce waste sent to landfills; conserve energy and water; be healthier and safer for occupants and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The Recovery Center is part of the old Colorado University Health Sciences District that was vacated when new facilities were opened on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colo., on the site of the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. The Recovery Center building was constructed in 1952 as the Mount Airy Psychiatric Center. The retrofit cost $15.5 million, and LEED points were earned for recycling 72% of construction waste, generating more than 10% of its own energy through a rooftop solar array, landscaping with the use of native plants that have low water requirements, and taking steps to reduce indoor air pollution.

—Andis Robeznieks