Fountain Valley : Reception to Formally Open Hospital Today

A reception to celebrate the opening of FHP Hospital-Fountain Valley, the first hospital to be built in the county in a decade, will be held from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. today.

The 117-bed hospital, built to treat acutely ill members of the health maintenance organization, actually opened its doors Feb. 1, and the first baby was born there Feb. 2.

Today’s festivities will include a ribbon-cutting at 7:30 p.m., champagne, hors d’oeuvres, tours and entertainment. State Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress), Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Long Beach), Orange County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton and Fountain Valley Mayor Fred Voss are scheduled to attend.

The hospital is the focus of a $24-million “medical campus” of FHP outpatient facilities and offices at 9920 Talbert Ave.

All rooms in the hospital have private balconies to facilitate healing by offering patients fresh air and natural light, officials said. The hospital, set back from the intersection of Brookhurst Street and Talbert Avenue behind a parklike setting of trees, is decorated in muted earth, peach and mauve tones.

The 96,000-square-foot hospital has separate elevators for the public and staff so that patients’ gurneys are not crowded into the lifts with visitors.

The FHP staff tested several catering services before hiring Ogden Foods of Los Angeles, which prepares first-class-section food for several airlines, officials said. Meals are served on china and accompanied by flowers and wine if permitted by the patients’ physicians.

The hospital has an emergency room, four operating rooms, two home-style “alternative birthing centers,” two medical-surgical wings, a 12-bed intensive care unit, and a nine-bed “telemetry” unit for patients who no longer need intensive care but whose vital signs can be monitored while wearing portable telemetry packs as they stroll the halls.

“Taking care of a defined population gives us a great advantage,” said Steve Smith, regional vice president of the hospital company. “We don’t have to be everything to everyone. Cost savings come back to us, and we can put them into the amenities.”

Doctors staff the emergency room 24 hours a day, and an anesthesiologist and obstetrician are in the hospital around the clock. About 100 FHP physicians and about 150 nurses will staff the hospital.

The acronym FHP, at one time, stood for Family Health Program, but it now stands for nothing because the hospital was being confused with other health programs, a hospital spokesman said.