Hoag open during change

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian has acquired the lease for a second acute care facility in Irvine, but the move won’t diminish any of the care at its Newport Beach campus, the hospital’s president said.

Hoag announced the move Thursday after it agreed to take over the lease once the hospital’s current operator moved out in February 2009, officials said.

Hoag will lease the hospital at the end of February 2009 from HCP Inc., a real estate investment trust based out of Long Beach.

“We will try to rationalize our services across the two facilities,” the president and chief executive of Hoag Hospital Richard Afable said. “We will be thinking about the two facilities as two sites of a single hospital more than we will be considering them as two separate hospitals.”

Afable added that the hospital, while much smaller than Hoag’s Newport Beach campus, would function much the same way with a predominant focus on outpatient care.

Plans for the hospital are in the works, but decisions concerning the hospital’s current and future staff have yet to be determined, Afable said.

The one thing Afable did make clear was the hospital would remain open during this time of transition.

“We at Hoag Hospital have been committed to the community and the city of Irvine and will provide for the needs of the people, medically speaking, before we take possession of the hospital and after,” Afable said. “Once we have some clear plans as to how that facility will be used from February and thereafter, we will have a better idea of what and how those plans will come to fruition.

“The most notable unknown is what are the plans of the current operator.”

Officials from Hoag and Tenet Healthcare Corporation, the current operator, plan to meet soon to discuss the transition period and Tenet’s plan for the immediate future.

The move on Tenet’s part was a portion of an agreement to resolve pending litigation and arbitration with HCP Inc., which owns seven hospitals leased by Tenet.

Part of the companies’ agreement was an extension of four hospital leases and the notice of two non-renewals — one of which was the Irvine Regional Hospital and Medical Center and the other a facility at Los Gatos.

“The age of physical plant and the requisite capital improvements was a factor in the decision not to renew the lease at Los Gatos, and over the years the economic terms of our lease created barriers to our success at Irvine,” said Tenet’s Chief Operating Officer Stephen L. Newman.

Afable didn’t disclose any of the particulars of the lease agreement for the new hospital but said Hoag’s agreement was a long-term one.

The facility, as it stands, is a 176-bed hospital, in comparison to Hoag’s Newport Beach campus, which functions at a 498-bed capacity.

There are no plans for expansion at the Irvine campus in the near future, and hospital management is expected to come from Hoag’s administrators, Afable said.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.