Health care facility renovation planning in southwest Washington

¶ … Interventional Pain Clinic (IPC) as part of PeaceHealth Southwest Washington Hospital, located in Vancouver, Washington. This descriptive essay will be used to assist in developing focus on future projects with this class. This essay will give a background and history of this institution before investigating some of the specific purposes of the pain clinic. This community need will be explained and how this need does or does not specifically address the population this facility is attempting to serve.

PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center has deep roots within this pacific northwest community. The original building was established in 1858 and the hospital was called St. Joseph Hospital. This hospital was originally founded by Mother Joseph Pariseasu and it is the oldest hospital in this part of the country. The other side of this merger began with Clark General Hospital which opened in 1929 to honor and serve military veterans and later changed its name to Vancouver Memorial Hospital.

In 1977 St. Joseph and Vancouver Memorial Hospital merged and formed Southwest Washington Hospitals and later in 1989 changed its name to Southwest Washington Medical Center. Less than three years ago, in 2011, Southwest and PeaceHealth became affiliated and merged together which represents the PeaceHealth Southwest Washington Hospital complex it is today. Just last year a new merger also took place where The Catholic Health Initiative became affiliated with this group as well.

The Interventional Pain Clinic

This clinic as part of the larger PeaceHealth system is designed for patients with serious problems with pain. Interventional pain specialists work to help design a treatment plan to manage pain that is associated with healing. Some of these methods include physical therapy, medication therapy, or anesthetic nerve blocks. Some treatment options that are practiced there are, epidural steroid injections, spinal cord stimulation, infusion pumping, and relaxation therapy. A referral from the patients primary physician is required for an appointment into this clinic.

Mission and Target Population

Southwest is a huge and varying medical complex that is attempting to serve all the medical needs of a large community. The hospital itself is based on the healing missions of Jesus Christ and promoting community health in a loving and caring way. This suggests that anyone that needs medical assistance will be able to find what they need at Southwest.

Southwest has demonstrated its capabilities to perform well for the community as there are nearly 30,000 visits each year. Nearly 3000 babies are born each year at Southwest and is one of the busiest emergency rooms in the Pacific Northwest. There are nearly 3,400 people employed at this hospital with more than 1000 being medical staff with a licensed bed capacity of 450.