VA hospital opens second floor, to open third floor in weeks

The Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital in North Las Vegas opened its second floor Nov. 6 and added 14 new departments to the services offered at the facility.

Additionally, the hospital at 6900 N. Pecos Road plans to open the third floor on Dec. 4, said John Bright, director of the VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System.

"The biggest dissatisfaction (for veterans) here is having to go to Southern California," he said. "Every year, the system has typically had to send in excess of 2,000 veterans to Southern California for care, including cardiac care and eye surgery. Almost all of those services will be brought back to the Las Vegas community through the expansion of the new hospital's services with the exception of cardiac surgery and neurological surgeries."

Departments included on the second floor are dermatology, home-based programs, audiology, neurology, rheumatology, endocrine, the diabetic clinic, the GI clinic, pain management, health administration services, the veterans business center, research, lab and sterile supply.

When the third floor opens Dec. 4, seven additional departments will move into the hospital, including compensation and pension, dialysis, occupational health, cardiology, the endoscopy suite, surgical clinics and dental. Bright said the additions had to be approved in Washington but thinks the biggest improvement to the property will be the renovated operating room.

The hospital plans to renovate its operating rooms so surgeons can perform robotic vascular surgery without sending patients to Southern California for the procedure.

The new operating room should be open by February or March 2013, he said.

"The long-term impact will outweigh the two- or three-month inconvenience," Bright said. The costs will come from the hospital's existing budget. He said the updates are possible now because, when planning for the hospital began in 2007, they dealt with different leadership. "We have new players, and there's a different mind-set now," Bright added.

As a result of the new departments, 900 staff members were hired at the hospital in the last two years, some working at other sites temporarily before being moved into the new offices, Bright said.

The Community Living Center is scheduled to open as soon as the inpatient beds facility opens in March because it will support the community center, Bright said. The inpatient care facility will also service hospice, dementia and Alzheimer's disease patients, too.

He said that when all of the services are open, he expects to serve about 1,200 patients a day at the hospital compared with the 2,500 a day in the system. Some veterans travel as far as western Arizona and San Bernardino, Calif., for care in the Las Vegas system, he said, crediting the expansion. Primary care is also offered at four sites in the valley.

"We think we're well-situated into the out years," Bright said. "As the economy rolls back, and people begin to return, particularly our young returning veterans, we're going to be ready and able to serve them."

Additionally, the system has been approved to build a new clinic in Pahrump that would open in late fall of 2013.

"We're working fast and furious, and you always encounter issues every day when you open a brand new hospital," he said. "I'm very excited to be able to look a veteran in the eye and say, 'You have a hospital.' "

Dr. Bryan Werner, the section chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation, joined the Department of Veterans Affairs three years ago after working in San Francisco. He said he came to Las Vegas specifically to work on the expansion. When he first arrived, his center included a small team of a physiatrist and two physical therapists. Since then, the department has grown to include 10 physical therapists, two occupational therapists, two speech therapists, two chiropractors and an acupuncturist.

"What drives our department is putting the veteran first," Werner said.

The rehabilitation clinic was expected to be fully operational by Nov. 6, including teams that help with traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injuries, osteopathic therapy, the integrated pain clinic and amputee therapy.

"I'm excited for the rehab department to have a lot of these different services working closely together to create a treatment synergy," Werner said.

"Before, the treatment was very fragmented - you might get VA treatment spread out at clinics across town. Now, the treatment is much more seamless and integrated."

Roger Fisher, a Marine Corps veteran who has used the system for nearly 11 years, said the consolidation of services to the new hospital is a positive change in his life.

He and his wife live with his mother-in-law, who suffers from dementia and can't be left alone. Fisher, who couldn't drive for more than a year, had to be driven to his appointments across town by his wife, and that meant his mother-in-law had to come, too.

"To get her ready was a very big deal," he said about the repeated inconvenience of traveling to different locations.

He's had lower back surgery and problems with his hands and knees. He said he's been in the new hospital only for physical therapy so far but has an appointment scheduled in two months.

"It's going to be a great system if it turns out to be like everywhere else, where you get all your care right there," Fisher said.

He said he also has noticed that it's easier to get appointments quickly - he said he likes that he can walk right into the clinics and get care just down the hall from each one.

Making it easier to access care for veterans such as Fisher was the point of the consolidation, Werner said.

"It's just a more holistic approach, and it really is veteran-centric in terms of making access easier," Werner said. "Radiology's down the hall - before they may have to be sent across town to get an X-ray; now they just have to walk down the hallway," Werner said.

For more information, visit tinyurl.com/amr8xtd or call 702-791-9000.

Contact Centennial and North Las Vegas View reporter Laura Phelps at lphelps@viewnews.com or 702-477-3839.