San Diego North County Economic Development Council

OCEANSIDE ---- Tri-City Medical Center directors discussed Thursday how they will handle the growing number of patients the hospital is sure to see in the next two decades.

Demographers with the San Diego Association of Governments presented a report to the hospital board Thursday that predicted the county will add 933,473 more people by the year 2030. What's more, officials said, San Diego residents age 60 to 79 will become a much larger percentage, requiring the region's already-stressed hospital network to meet ever increasing demand.

The demographic presentation was made during the hospital's regular monthly board meeting.

After hearing the forecast, Tri-City board member Madeline Rodriguez ---- an obstetrician elected to the board in 2006 ---- asked why Tri-City's current master plan calls for all future investment in new buildings to occur on the hospital's main campus at Thunder Drive and Vista Way.

"I wonder, if transportation is getting harder, if our population is aging, why not take our services to the population?" Rodriguez said.

She said the hospital, which is midway through the process of reworking its long-term building plans, ought to try finding a way to push the services it offers deeper into the three communities that put the "tri" in Tri-City.

"Why not spread ourselves out in the community, instead of building on one location?" she asked.

Director Darlene Garrahy responded that she thought smaller "satellite" hospital campuses in Vista, Carlsbad and Oceanside might make sense, but not for everything. She said the hospital's central campus, situated off Highway 78 near the center of the three cities, makes better sense for some things.

"For an acute-care facility, this location, in my opinion, is the best location," Garrahy said.

Acute care hospitals typically include the main hospital services like an emergency room, intensive care ward and rooms where the most complicated and delicate surgeries can be performed.

Gary Knight, President/CEO of the San Diego North Economic Development Council, served as a facilitator for Thursday's demographic discussion. Knight came prepared with his own research that showed there may be some financial benefit to extending Tri-City's physical presence beyond its main campus on the border of Vista and Oceanside, just north of Highway 78 and the Carlsbad city limits.

Knight said he used a computer program created by the Claritas Corp. to estimate that median household income is about $56,000 within a one-mile radius of the hospital. That figure jumps to $73,567 within a five-mile radius and to $81,642 within 10 miles.

"As you go farther away from this facility, you reach into more affluent neighborhoods," Knight said.

Rodriguez countered that, while there may be money out there, voters have not been inclined to share it with Tri-City. The hospital narrowly lost two $596 million bond measures in 2006.

Board Chairman Larry Schallock worried about Tri-City's ability to recruit physicians and nurses in the future. He said there will soon be a shortage of primary-care doctors.

"How are we going to take care of this geriatric population that's going to be here if we don't have physicians to take care of them?" Schallock said.