Construction Zone

One-stop care at new Ryan Ranch facility

Years ago, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula began when Grace Deere Velie Harris, an heir to the Deere tractor fortune, endowed a hospital in Carmel for research into metabolic disorders. Converted into a general community hospital in 1934, the hospital moved to its present 22-acre site in 1962 to better serve the needs of the Monterey Peninsula.

Today, more than 40 years later, Community Hospital has grown beyond traditional acute-care services. It now provides a continuum of high-quality healthcare in numerous locations, serving not only the Monterey Peninsula but also neighboring communities.

Since most of the wider community’s future growth will take place in Marina, Ft. Ord, Seaside and along the Highway 68 corridor, Community Hospital made plans to be there as well. This summer, the hospital opened an expansive, centrally located facility — the Ryan Ranch Outpatient Campus — which will house an expanded Sleep Disorders Center and Diabetes and Nutrition Therapy programs, a new imaging center (opening mid-November 2004), an additional satellite lab (opening mid-November 2004), a health resource library (opening mid-November 2004), doctors’ offices, and administrative offices for the hospital’s hospice and home healthcare programs.

Three factors drove the decision to develop this facility. First, the hospital has provided various outpatient services at the main hospital that could be provided at greater patient convenience outside the inpatient setting. Second, the hospital has offered services in some 16 different locations across Peninsula and in Salinas, some of which could be coordinated on a single campus. Finally, Community Hospital has a long history of growing in the direction, both geographically and medically, of its community.

By moving the administrative offices for both Home Health Services and Hospice of the Central Coast into Ryan Ranch, the programs are able to centralize services in an optimal location. Similarly, relocating the Diabetes and Nutrition Therapy programs make it easier to offer more classes and private appointments, and to otherwise accommodate the growing need for these services.

“Our programs are growing to keep pace with the incidence of diabetes,”
says Janice Harrell, a clinical dietitian and director of Nutrition Services. “The statistics are alarming; some 35 children are diagnosed with diabetes in this country every day, not to mention the adults. The more people need our services, the more we need to grow and expand.”

By moving the only accredited sleep center in the tri-county area to Ryan Ranch, the expanded four-bed facility is responding to the evergrowing need for sleep disorder services with a high-tech diagnostic center designed with rest and reliability in mind.

“Requirements are higher for the sleep center than for most diagnostic the settings because people come to spend the night and sleep here,” says Dann Ehnstrom, director of Cardiopulmonary Services and Radiology Services. “If nothing else, the views of the surrounding hillsides visible from each room make a nice image for patients to see before drifting off to sleep or upon awakening in the morning.”

The campus’ new imaging center (opening mid-November 2004), provides a complete array of outpatient diagnostic imaging services, including MRI and CT scans. Delivering a greater number of such services to outpatients away from the hospital means better service for hospital inpatients, too.

The hospital has experienced considerable positive response from local doctors interested in purchasing condominium space. By moving their offices into the 48,000-square-foot complex at Ryan Ranch, doctors will enjoy proximity to one another, high-tech amenities such as a high-speed internet connection, and the variety of outpatient services now provided by the hospital.

Where else can you visit your doctor, get a lab test or an ultrasound, attend a class on nutrition or diabetes, and pick up information on myriad health conditions in time for an all-night session at the Sleep Disorders Center, all in one of the most beautiful settings in the world?