Banner Thunderbird Medical Center has begun a $289 million expansion.
The biggest portion of the project is a 200-bed patient tower on the south side of the hospital, with construction to begin in July. The tower will include a new emergency department that can accommodate 84 patients at a time, a new critical care area, and telemetry floors.
Once the seven-story tower is completed in March 2009, other service lines will grow and backfill vacated floors through August 2010. It will be the tallest building in the northwest Valley.
Construction of the south tower will force the emergency department to close its southern patient entrance and move it to the east. The new department is expected to open in late 2008.
A north tower also will begin construction next month, to be completed in June 2008.
For more: www.bannerhealth.com.
Phoenix is hotbed for nurses
Phoenix is the country's best market for nurses, as evidenced by the percentage of nursing job postings on Monster.com and the year-over-year growth in those postings.
According to Monster's "Nursing Job Seeker Activity: 2007 Outlook," nursing job postings on the Web site surged nearly 55 percent in late 2006 from the same period in 2005. In addition, 54 percent of recruiters said they felt their hiring needs would increase in 2007, and one-third consider many of their job openings difficult to fill.
Only 30 percent of nursing job seekers indicated that they were willing to relocate, down from 32 percent a year ago. Candidates may be becoming more selective as they are better able to find attractive opportunities within their current job markets.
Phoenix was followed by Chicago on the Monster list. Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and New York followed, with the Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M., area ranking seventh and California's greater San Francisco Bay Area ranking eighth. Denver and Baltimore, Md., rounded out the top 10.
For more: www.monster.com.
AzTE CEO to be named soon
Word on the street is that Peter Slate's replacement as chief executive of Arizona Technology Enterprises should be announced within the next couple of weeks.
The technology-transfer arm of Arizona State University is building marketing alliances with Columbia University, which is where ASU President Michael Crow worked before coming to the Valley.
Prior to becoming the founding chief executive of AzTE, Slate served as general partner for two Arizona venture capital funds: Arris Ventures and Paradise '94.
For more: www.azte.com.
Seniors get a hand
Brentwood, Tenn.-based Inspiris is extending nurse practitioner-led care and care management services for members of Senior Care Action Network in the Phoenix market.
Inspiris focuses on improving quality of life for the frail elderly, chronically ill and disabled in an effort to reduce the cost to Medicare Advantage and Medicaid health plans.
Inspiris has been serving SCAN members in the Phoenix market since October, providing its CarePlus nursing home-based services to enrollees in custodial care. Now Inspiris is expanding its services to SCAN members who live in about 15 assisted living centers, through its new CarePlus At Home model.
Under this program, nurse practitioners will visit the assisted living centers each week, seeing members as needed and providing case management over the phone.
Inspiris also will provide post-acute care management for members receiving short-term care during skilled nursing home stays.
