Deborah Howell (Host): Well, it's been a very exciting time for Jefferson Healthcare. And today, we'd love to fill you in on some recent developments. Welcome, I'm your host, Deborah Howell. Our guest today is Jacob Davidson. He likes to be called Jake, and he's the Chief Operating Officer of Jefferson Healthcare, and he's here with a quarterly update for us. Welcome, Jake.

Jake Davidson: Welcome. Excited to talk with you.

Host: So first off, tell me a little bit about your position at the hospital and what you do every day when you walk through the door.

Jake Davidson: I'm the chief operating officer. So, I oversee a majority of our operations, which include our medical group, so all of our outpatient clinic facilities with most of our physicians; our ancillary world, so our lab imaging pharmacy and rehab; and then finally, support services. So, a lot of the areas that folks don't see and the biggest piece of that right now is projects. And so, that's why we're here to talk through our biggest project, which is exciting for the community.

Host: Great. How long have you been the Chief Operating Officer?

Jake Davidson: I've been the Chief Operating Officer for about two and a half years now, going on three years.

Host: Okay. And what's the best part about your job, Jake?

Jake Davidson: I love working with the 800 employees we have, all of our great physicians and advanced practice providers and our patients and living in the community and just you hear the bad, but also you hear the good. And it's just amazing all the good that we do for the community.

Host: I'm so glad to hear it. Now, let's talk about those updates. What is the project adding to the clinic?

Jake Davidson: Yeah. So, we're really thrilled about this project. Really, the main goal that we're doing is replacing a building that's outlived its useful life. And so, we're taking that time look at what are some of the services that we don't have that we need for the community. And so, I'm going to highlight a few of those.

Radiation therapy, so Radiation Oncology, we will be the first critical access in the state of Washington to have a linear accelerator to be able to provide that treatment for our cancer patients, which is amazing. Right now, they have to travel an hour each way, so two hours round trip to get that care, you know, a 5 to 15-minute procedure. And so, during the toughest times, that's just brutal. So we're thrilled about that.

We're thrilled about adding new clinic services like ENT, Ear, Nose, and Throat, and Audiology, which is our number one out-referral. So again, patients have to travel to get that care. Neurology is number two. So, we're excited to add that. Pulmonology. And then, we're excited to expand some of the clinics that we have right now. So Dermatology, for example, we just don't have enough space. And so, we're expanding that to hopefully better meet the needs of our community, including our Hand and Plastics and our Wound and OB-GYN clinics. So, not only are we adding services, but we're also growing services.

Host: Just incredible. You'll be a one-stop shop for your patients.

Jake Davidson: That's the goal, you know, if we can do it and do it well, we want to do it. Often our patients will get a referral. And unfortunately, the hindrance of a two-hour round trip means that they don't go get that care that they need. And so, it's great for our patients, it's great for the community, it's also great for our providers that are referring those patients to get those specialty services.

Host: Right. Keep it all under one silo. What are some things to know about changes during the construction?

Jake Davidson: Well, of course, this construction site, the building that we're taking down is the backbone of our campus. And so, there are disruptions. Right now, the general contractor has control of the building. And so, we've done lots of key transitions. And so, our dietary team, we have set up the Fairgrounds, a brand new kitchen down there where we're doing all of our meals for our patients and then we are driving them up. We have moved our express clinic that was back in August and most of our patients have, figured out where that's at. So, that's good. We recently moved our OB-GYN clinic into our general surgery clinic. All of our administration has moved. We actually moved a building, which was pretty amazing. Not often in your career do you get to see a building up and moving on wheels. And then finally, we now have our mobile MRI, which we are working on hooking up right now, and we'll go live here shortly with that.

And so, like I said, the general contractor now has control of the building and is starting abatement. And then, we'll do demo shortly after. So, there's not a whole lot at this point that is changing for the patients. We did lose a little parking, which we're keeping a close eye on, because we want to ensure parking for our patients. But. we are also adding support staff to help patients navigate through the maze that we have right now. So, I'd say that's probably the biggest call out, is that we are working to ensure that patients don't get lost in the new path that we have to connect the buildings.

Host: Sure. That's a lot of improvements. What about the costs and the financing of those costs?

Jake Davidson: Yeah. So that's been, you know, of course the biggest focus. And so, right now, our costs are basically nailed down to our guaranteed maximum price. For construction, it's about 61.5 million. And then, you add in soft costs, about 15.5 million. So, we're looking at about an 84-million project, which is what we've been eyeing for the last few months. And so, those are kind of the two high-level costs around that.

So, how are you going to finance it is always the question. So, we've gone through a few different paths. One is funding that we don't have to pay for, which is always the nicest. So, the federal government is giving us 2.5 million for our Rad-Onc program. And hopefully, fingers crossed, if they pass their budgets this year, about 2 million for specialty services. And then, the state of Washington is giving us 4 million for reproductive health. So, that's another awesome piece of the puzzle.

The foundation, so our Jefferson Healthcare Foundation, is in the process of raising 2.5 million as well. So, that really helps offset all of the other funding that we have to get. So of course, we are spending some cash, our own capital, about 10 million. Then, we have two avenues for the majority of the rest of the funding. So, bank placement, so we have two banks that are lending us between 20 and 25 million, which is exciting. And then, finally, we're doing a public offering or a revenue bond that will be priced here shortly out to cover the rest of the funding needed for the building.

Host: All right. Well, best of luck on that. What are these improvements going to mean for patients, and why are they so important for those who work and come to the hospital?

Jake Davidson: At the end of the day, I'd say there's a few reasons. Number one, it's providing care that we haven't before. So, getting care closer to home is the best care, frankly. I mean, that's what we believe fully. Number two, a new facility that is going to meet the needs now and 20, 30, 40 years down the road. Getting rid of the old facility is going to be huge. And then, just giving us space to continue to grow services that we know that we need to grow, like Dermatology.

So, I think at the end of the day, we are adding services that this community needs. You know, we look at the data and we think about 3,000 patients a year we will serve with those new services, which is about 10% of the community.

Host: That's incredible. And when do you expect everything to be completed?

Jake Davidson: We went with kind of a faster construction. It is about a 70-week full construction project schedule. We're still working through some permitting, But if we can get construction started in early 2024, we're looking at early Q2 of 2025 moving in. So, we're now starting to back into recruiting those physicians for those positions and those other key areas, with that timeline. So, I think we're looking right now May of 2025, moving into the building.

Host: Very exciting. Can't wait until you cut the ribbon.

Jake Davidson: Yes, us too. Lots of work has gone into this.

Host: I can only imagine. Jake, is there anything else you'd like to add to our conversation?

Jake Davidson: The coolest thing is just that we are a health system that's really focused on the community. We're really focused on bringing services that our community needs, and this is an awesome project to meet that need. And I think we're all very thrilled about it and being able to continue to grow the services we offer and keep care local.

Host: Well, your enthusiasm is palpable. It's been such excellent information, Jake, this morning. Thanks so much for sharing the quarterly update with us.

Jake Davidson: Yeah, thank you, Deborah. It's always fun to talk through it.

Host: And if you'd like to find out more, jeffersonhealthcare.org/quarterly is where you go. And to listen to a podcast on this and other topics of interest, go to jeffersonhealthcare.org. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels. Thanks for listening. I'm Deborah Howell. Have yourself a terrific day.