Early on the morning of January 17, 1994, the Northridge earthquake started shaking the ground in Reseda, California, just outside Los Angeles. The quake measured a strong 6.7 on the Richter scale, and it had the highest ground movement ever instrumentally recorded in North America. While most of the repairs from the estimated $20 billion in damage have been completed, this quake continues to resonate throughout the healthcare system in the entire state of California.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 11 hospitals were damaged or unusable after the earthquake while the RAND report said 12 hospitals had buildings that were “red tagged” as unsafe for occupancy. These medical facilities could not serve their own neighborhoods at a critical time when more than 9,000 people were injured. To further complicate the situation, many damaged hospitals had to transfer their current patients to other facilities which further overloaded the healthcare system in the area.
As a result of this catastrophic event, in 1994 the California legislature passed an Amendment (SB 1953) to the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Safety Act of 1973. SB 1953 requires that by 2013 all hospitals that are considered hazardous and at the risk of collapse or significant loss of life in the event of an earthquake must be replaced or retrofitted to a higher seismic safety standard. The law also mandates that by 2030 all hospitals in California must be capable of remaining open and fully operational following a major quake. There have been numerous debates and discussions about extensions to the deadline, mainly due to the huge capital expenditure needed to bring all of the hospitals into compliance. In spite of the recent Rand report estimate of $110 billion for this effort, the deadlines remain.
The direct effect of SB 1953
This was the context for the 574-bed Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) as its facilities were evaluated to comply with the new law. The county-owned hospital has been in operation since 1876. Over the years the original building had been replaced, and now the medical center is comprised of a number of buildings. During the structural assessment of the facilities on the campus it became clear that while an upgrade could extend the life of one hospital building, at least one building had to be completely replaced.
