Valley hospitals building to high standard

Michelle Swafford

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 10:57 a.m.

In the Las Vegas Valley, hospitals are going high-tech and focusing on hotel amenities to improve patients' experiences.

Private hospital rooms have become commonplace at many of the local hospitals, but the latest hotel-like amenities include room service, executive chef-prepared meals and valet parking.

Mimi Gayre, spokeswoman for North Vista Hospital in North Las Vegas, said local hospitals often look to the hospitality industry because it is so prominent in Nevada and sets a standard. She said all of the casinos and hotels raise the bar for local hospitals.

HCA Inc.-owned MountainView and Southern Hills hospitals and Universal Health Services Inc.-owned Spring Valley Hospital offer room service for patients, enabling them to order what they want -- within their dietary guidelines -- from a menu and have it delivered to them.

"Because consumers do have a choice on which hospitals they go to, like they do with hotels, we try to do what we can to make that experience as good as possible," MountainView spokesman Rick Plummer said. "We learned quite a bit from the hospitality industry."

Southern Hills, sister hospital Sunrise and Catholic Healthcare West-owned St. Rose Dominican Hospitals - Siena Campus and St. Rose Dominican Hospitals - Rose de Lima Campus have executive chefs who prepare hospital meals.

Sunrise also offers high-speed Internet connections in its maternity rooms so family members can take photos and video clips and send them from their laptops. Spring Valley will begin offering high-speed Internet access to its patients in the near future, hospital spokeswoman Naomi Linardo said.

Also, Spring Valley will soon provide outpatients with pagers that will buzz them when it is time for their procedures, allowing them to roam the hospital in the meantime, Linardo said.

Most of the local hospitals also offer valet parking for guests and complimentary newspapers for patients.

In addition to amenities, local hospitals have stepped up technology to improve patient care and reduce medical errors.

Spring Valley and both St. Rose Dominican hospitals provide electronic medical records. Universal's other hospitals -- Summerlin, Valley and Desert Springs -- plan to convert to electronic records, as does IASIS Healthcare Corp.-owned North Vista Hospital.

Local hospitals also are filling prescriptions electronically. At Sunrise, Southern Hills and MountainView hospitals, nurses have to scan an electronic identification band worn by patients and a bar code on drugs before administering medication to patients.