First New Medical School in Pacific Northwest in 60 Years

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Publication: Business Wire
Date: Thursday, May 17 2007

YAKIMA, Wash. — The shovels of soil turned today represent a significant advancement toward improving access to health care for the people of the Pacific Northwest.

Groundbreaking ceremonies were held to launch construction of Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences (PNWU), the first medical school in 60 years to be built in the Pacific Northwest. The school and campus are located in the Terrace Heights area.

The 48,000-square-foot, two-story facility housing PNWU’s first school, the College of Osteopathic Medicine, is scheduled for completion in July 2008, with the first class of medical students expected to begin studies in September 2008. The college will offer a rigorous, four-year medical degree program to train primary care physicians.

“This ceremony inaugurates more than a building,” said Dr. Lloyd Butler, DO, chairman of the board of trustees. “Today, we begin building a new university, one dedicated to health, healing and scientific medical care.”

The university’s top priority is to prepare new doctors for the medically underserved five states of the Pacific Northwest: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, according to Fred Tinning, PhD, president of the university.

He points to statistics that dramatically illustrate the need for more physicians, particularly in rural areas of the Northwest.

“In the state of Washington, 38 of 39 counties are classified as medically underserved. In Oregon, 97 percent of counties are designated as health professional shortage areas. The federal government has determined Idaho, Montana and Alaska are also medically underserved. In Alaska, fully 50 percent of current physicians are over 55 and like many rural physicians, approaching retirement, which will fuel the access problem further,” said Dr. Tinning.

“Osteopathic physicians provide family-oriented primary care, with approximately 65 percent specializing in areas such as pediatrics, family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology,” Dr. Tinning said. “Such physicians have a vital role in the rural health care system.” Doctors of Osteopathy (DO), along with MDs, attend four-year medical schools and

“Osteopathic physicians provide family-oriented primary care, with approximately 65 percent specializing in areas such as pediatrics, family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology,” Dr. Tinning said. “Such physicians have a vital role in the rural health care system.” Doctors of Osteopathy (DO), along with MDs, attend four-year medical schools and are licensed to prescribe medication and perform surgery in all 50 states. University officials feel it is critical to train students where the greatest need exists. Until now, the Pacific Northwest has been the only location in the country without a college of osteopathic medicine.

“The American Osteopathic Association is pleased to welcome Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences as one of our newest colleges of osteopathic medicine,” said John Crosby, executive director of the American Osteopathic Association. “PNWU graduates will soon be bringing to the Yakima community and the U.S. Northwest the highest-quality health care using the unique and distinctive methods that osteopathic physicians can provide.”

“If we take students from the Pacific Northwest, train them in the Pacific Northwest, they will be more likely to stay in the Pacific Northwest and take care of the people in the Pacific Northwest,” explained Dr. Butler.

A desire to practice in rural communities, particularly in the Northwest, will be part of the selection process used by PNWU in evaluating students. “We will have a preferential admission policy with first choice given to the highly qualified students from our five-state region,” said Dr. William Betz, DO, vice president/chief academic officer and dean.

The school is dedicated to offering affordable tuition rates and developing community-based scholarship programs for students. As part of the four-year program, students must complete both classroom instruction and clinical training programs. PNWU will work with rural and small community hospitals, training students in the environment in which they will ultimately practice, Dr. Betz said. More than 150 rural physicians already have expressed interest in hosting students for clinical rotation and 17 health care facilities have signed on as clinical training sites.

“We are devoted to training new generations of doctors who will serve the needs of the medically underserved,” said Tim Morris, vice president and chief operating officer for PNWU. The officers of the university completed an initial feasibility study in 2006, according to Morris. PNWU has been granted authority from the Higher Education Coordinating Board of Washington State to confer the medical degree Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). The university has also received pre-accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (AOA COCA). Until granted appropriate status by AOA COCA, PNWU cannot actively recruit students or provide counsel regarding admissions.

The building inaugurated today is a $16 million state-of-the-art facility offering classroom space, a library, a simulated patient training laboratory, an interactive video teaching lab, basic science anatomy lab, physical diagnosis teaching performance labs, and faculty offices as well as computer and study space. PNWU plans to work cooperatively with other local training institutions, encouraging nursing and other allied health programs to use the simulation and anatomy labs when not occupied for physician training. Dr. Tinning and university leaders have been meeting with other Northwest universities and community colleges to determine the best ways to collaborate. PNWU has already received nearly 300 letters of support from regional leaders and physicians.

The university is being developed on a 42.5 acre parcel of land. The Temple family donated $7.2 million worth of land, representing over half of the total university site complex. The Temples are one of the major founding benefactors of the university and are owners of the Columbia Basin Railroad Company. PNWU has been founded as a 501c3 not-for-profit private university and will continue to seek contributions and financial support from a wide spectrum of stakeholders in the health care system.

Why Yakima?

“The leadership, vision and commitment of founding physicians, health care professionals and community leaders have made this university possible,” Dr. Butler said. “PNWU works very well here because Yakima is centrally located in the region and is familiar with the health care access challenges rural communities face.”

Dr. Butler continued, “It’s an incredible testament to the Yakima community — to catch the vision and support this institution without waiting for the state or federal government to do it for them. This is happening only as a result of significant local and regional community efforts.”

Adds David McFadden, president of New Vision, the Yakima County Development Association, “This project offers exceptional benefits for the entire region. Undoubtedly this university will present tremendous economic impact in Yakima, but more significantly, communities and people throughout the five-state region will benefit with improved access to medical care by having more physicians in historically underserved areas.”

Yakima - A Landscape of Promise

Yakima County’s vast and diverse landscape is often a surprise to visitors.

In less than an hour’s drive, one can travel from sagebrush-covered prairie or lush, irrigated farmland to forested hills that lead directly into the jagged Cascade Mountains.

Brilliant views of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams are omnipresent from most points in the county. The Naches and Yakima rivers leisurely wind their way through the area, a place that many people mistakenly perceive as primarily a semi-arid desert.

Natural beauty aside, what may not be as immediately apparent to those passing through is the diversity and health of the region’s economic landscape.

Yakima County has been rightfully called the fruit bowl of the nation, thanks to its abundant crops, such as tree fruits and wine grapes. While agriculture remains a mainstay here, Yakima also has one of the most diverse economies in Eastern Washington.

A deceptively strong manufacturing sector and a thriving health-care industry compliment the region’s well-known agricultural base. The area’s burgeoning tourism industry, spawned by the growth of wineries and vineyards, as well as a prosperous convention trade industry, are also adding more jobs and revenues to public treasuries. New businesses dot the landscape.

“The last five years have seen the best job growth in decades,” says Don Meseck, labor analyst for Washington State Employment Security. “[Yakima County] grew at the same rate as Washington state last year.”

The economy has been so strong in recent years that the county’s unemployment rate is at historically low levels. In almost every category, the number of jobs being created is on the rise, with health services and construction leading the way. Meseck describes the Yakima area as “virtually at full employment.”

Manufacturing strength
One reason for that strong employment picture is the county’s manufacturing sector, which some local observers call Yakima’s best-kept secret.

About 14 percent of the county’s nonagricultural workforce is employed in manufacturing; 260 companies make a wide array of products, ranging from designing and producing light sports aircraft and parts for the world’s aerospace industry to manufacturing critical components for the technology and medical fields. Many of the companies in these industries have expanded in recent years.

The bottom line is healthy, says Mark Mochel, a business development manager for New Vision, a private economic development association for Yakima County. While the sector has not yet rebounded to the employment levels seen before the 2001 terrorist attacks, officials say manufacturing is still registering job gains.

“New Vision’s recent survey shows that more than 350,000 square feet of additional [manufacturing] space has been added in Yakima County, and almost 60 percent of the respondents reported an increase in sales and had positive outlooks for the coming year,” Mochel notes. “Only three companies reported a decrease in sales.”

Yakima’s agriculture-based manufacturing also continues to grow. Some examples include Blueline Manufacturing Co. and Orchard-Rite. Located about four miles east of Yakima in the city of Moxee, Blue Line makes and sells specialized farming equipment and is the only company in the nation building mechanized apple harvesting machines. Orchard-Rite has produced approximately 70 percent of the world’s wind machines used for crop frost control. It also designs and builds mechanical tree shakers for use in harvesting almonds, walnuts, pecans and pine nuts. Both companies expect to increase their manufacturing capacity.

From distribution centers for companies like Wal-Mart and Ace Hardware, to call centers for high-tech companies, this region is developing niche industries that play to its strengths as a centrally located hub with lower business costs.
The call center sector is volatile, as evidenced by the recent departure of HouseValues.com, an internet-based real estate business that closed its Yakima call center earlier this year. But labor analyst Meseck says that call centers are a viable industry in Yakima and should continue to grow.

Facts bear out Meseck’s contention. There remain three major call centers here: a customer-support center for appliance giants Maytag and Whirlpool; a billing claim service center for the Adaptis healthcare support company; and a customer-service operation run by Praeclarent, which supplies technical support for blue-chip financial heavyweights such as General Electric and JPMorgan Chase & Co. These centers employ about 300 people, says Dave McFadden, CEO for New Vision, and he believes that the future of these industries in Yakima remains bright.

“There is more room for growth [among the call centers],” McFadden says. “Our goal is for the centers to pay more than the county’s average hourly pay rate.”

The region’s backbone
Despite the growth in various industries, agriculture remains the area’s economic backbone.

Yakima County ranks 14th in the nation in the dollar value of the agricultural crops produced there. The sector was hard-hit a few years ago, but has rebounded in full. Today, nearly every crop being grown is experiencing rising prices.
“I have been working with the financial needs of agriculture for over 35 years, and I have never seen all crops do so well at once,” observes Tom Robbert, vice president for Key Bank’s Yakima office. “Even hops and grains are getting record prices.”

The economic heartbeat of the agricultural sector has long been the apple industry. Many observers thought the local apple orchards were down for the count at the turn of this century. Surplus supply, international competition and rising production costs resulted in prices below the cost of growing and harvesting the fruit. Many orchards were forced to shut. But it is a new world for the survivors.

“There have been transitions,” says Dan Kelly, assistant manger of the Washington Growers Clearinghouse, the Wenatchee-based growers association that tracks prices received for fruit. The standing growers have new varieties that fetch higher prices than the traditional Red and Golden Delicious apples, he explains, as well as resources to implement new technologies, resulting in a profitable industry.

Today, farmers enjoy record prices for most fruit crops, including apples.

”Farmers are more efficient and productive in the orchards,” Kelly adds, “and the packing houses have better marketing strategies.”

Healthy sectors
As in agriculture, this is a time of change for Yakima’s economy. Some niche sectors, such as the health services industry, are gaining strength. Yakima has long been a regional health-care center, but in the past five years, the sector has been the fastest growing industry in the county.

“Last year, there were more than 12,100 jobs in the sector, up from 11,500 in 2005, a 5.2 percent jump,” says Meseck. Retirees and aging baby boomers moving into Yakima are driving the growth, according to Meseck.
Yakima hasn’t always been a health-care center. Some 15 years ago, people had to leave town for treatment of serious illnesses such as cancer. No more, says Rick Linneweh, CEO of Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital.

Linneweh points to a list of innovative programs that Memorial has initiated, ranging from North Star Lodge, a one-stop treatment service for cancer patients, to the award-winning Children’s Village, which is able to treat the region’s children who have been stricken with cancer and other diseases.

One health-care institution that is expected to be a major shot in the arm to the local economy is the Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences (PNWU). The medical school, which is scheduled to open for classes in August 2008, specializes in osteopathic medicine, a discipline that uses a holistic approach for preventive health care and treatment. The university will focus on training physicians for rural areas in the Northwest.

PNWU, which was still in its formative stages two years ago, is now an accredited institution that is currently recruiting students. Construction on the main campus will be completed in the summer of 2008. Already on board are a dean and department heads; they are in the process of hiring instructors to greet the 120 students scheduled to begin classes next August. Within a few years, PNWU officials estimate that 480 students will attend the 42-acre campus and its programs.

Real-estate boom
Yakima county’s economic vitality, along with relatively inexpensive land, modest living costs, natural beauty and a relaxed lifestyle, have spurred the success of yet another industry: real-estate.

Demand for second homes and an influx of retirees moving to the area has dramatically increased housing prices. Companies seeking inexpensive land are looking for deals on industrial and commercial sites. The wine industry is also helping to propel a boost in the tourism industry.

“[The Yakima area] is becoming an investment hotspot,” maintains Bill Almon Sr., owner of Almon Commercial Real Estate, the region’s largest commercial real estate firm. “We are dealing with clients from all over—from Texas, California and Western Washington—who are looking for large tracts of land for residential projects. What is new is the amount of outside investors.”

An average home goes for about $156,000 in Yakima County, and commercial properties cost from $7.50 to $14.50 per square foot. Industrial properties range from $1.50 to $2.50 a square foot. Almon says all these prices are well below those in most places west of the Cascades.

Potential profit is also helping to turn the area into a hot market for speculators looking to buy land as an investment. “It is booming,” says Russ Roberts, a Heritage Moultray realtor who recently moved to Yakima from San Diego. “[Investors] are buying everything.”

Times have been very good for real-estate agents, and, so far, the county has not been affected by the national housing slump.

Kristy Wilbert of KMW Enterprises, which tracks real estate activity in the county, says that the number of home sales have set records in 2005, only to be surpassed in 2006. “And this year looks better than last year,” Wilbert says.
She warns that the sub-prime rate problem could affect the Yakima market, but it is too early to speculate on what may occur.

Data gleaned from realtors suggest that part of this real-estate boom has been the construction of upscale residential developments aimed at buyers from places like California and Seattle, who are beginning to discover Yakima County.
“In 2006, 27 percent of my clients were from outside the area,” says Nancy Nulph, top selling realtor for Coldwell Banker. “In 2007, it is 35 percent, year to date.” Nulph’s clients are a mix of retirees and people obtaining new jobs in Yakima.

The movement of people with disposable incomes into the area is logical, given historical trends and economics, say some realtors.

“We have seen places like the Bay Area, where people had appreciation in their homes and could sell,” says Ted Marquis Jr., manager of Creekside Reality. “Then they would buy much better homes in surrounding areas of California, while putting money in the bank. That trend is now occurring in Yakima.”

Realtor Russ Roberts is a prime example. The former San Diego resident was ready to cash out of Southern California’s skyrocketing real-estate market and get away from all the congestion. He settled on Yakima, where he could buy a nice home and still have plenty of money to put in the bank. He expects a lot more people to follow suit.

“The average home in San Diego was $535,000; here, it was about $150,000 or so,” Roberts says. “Developers are constructing homes for over $300,000, and people here are saying, ‘Who in Yakima can buy these houses?’ What they don’t realize is that it is people from California and Seattle.”

Allure of the good life
The real-estate buzz that has impacted this region in recent years is resulting in the development of a number of housing and recreational projects.

The most ambitious development is The Vineyards resort, located about eight miles from Zillah and near approximately 40 wineries. The beautiful landscape, coupled with recreational activities such as golf, were the driving forces for developing this ambitious project, explains Gary Scott, the project’s co-developer. Construction will begin this fall on a hill now covered by dry grass and sagebrush. This location provides panoramic views of the Yakima Valley and the white-capped mountains of the Cascades.

When completed, the development will include 580 homes and an 18-hole golf course, as well as a village center featuring a boutique hotel, spa, shops, sports facilities and cafés. Scott says he’s already sold 40 home sites.
Al DeAtley, a prominent Yakima businessman and civic leader, says the project has the potential to turn Yakima into “the next Bend, Oregon.”

Not far from The Vineyards is Zillah Lakes, a 224-acre resort community project that has been more-or-less flying under the radar. Eventually, the site is expected to include 630 homes, a nine-hole golf course, lakefront properties, a town center and other recreational amenities. The impetus for the project was based on a hunch, according to Steve Stroshal, co-owner of United Builders, which is developing the site.

“We became involved with a large development project in Tacoma just before the area went on an upswing,” Stroshal says. “We sensed that the same thing was occurring here, especially with the continued growth of the wine industry in this region.”

So far, Stroshal’s intuition has been on the mark. The project has already sold a number of home sites to Western Washington residents.

Running on all cylinders
Times are good in Yakima County. Thanks to the area’s economic health, there is a feeling of excitement and change in the air.

New businesses and industries are giving fresh, brighter colors and hues to the economic landscape, and the county is now seen as a modern-day investment frontier—or even perhaps another Sonoma or Napa Valley.

Times are good, but there is still room for improvement. Light-industrial growth hasn’t followed at the same clip as new residential and commercial developments. Some business and civic leaders also are concerned that wages, while keeping pace with inflation, remain below state averages. But others believe it is just a matter of time before the market corrects these discrepancies.

“More job growth will occur,” says Ted Marquis Sr., CEO of Marquis Enterprises, who also owns a prosperous business park in the area and will soon develop an industrial park. “We are getting inquiries all the time. We still have inexpensive industrial land, a manufacturing base to work with that is very high-tech, a skilled labor pool and a sound technical training education system. We are on the verge of really booming.”

From Seattle Business Monthly

Yakima Crime Rate

TJ MULLINAX/Yakima Herald-Republic

Overall crime in the city of Yakima has declined 56.5 percent since the high of 1988, when there were 175.3 crimes for every 1,000 residents. Last year that rate dropped to 76.3.

Yakima’s crime rate continues to dip to levels not seen in decades, thanks to a dramatic 19 percent drop in property crime last year.
Statistics for 2007 show that property crime in Yakima decreased in almost every category, according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. As a result, the city’s overall crime rate of 76.3 per 1,000 residents was the lowest since the state began keeping comparable statistics in the late 1970s.
Car thefts dropped 16 percent, burglary dropped nearly 18 percent and thefts were down 22 percent. Only
arson, which increased by 23 percent, went against the grain.
The trend mirrored that of the rest of Yakima County and most of its 13 other cities, which saw overall crime rate dip 15 percent.
Yakima’s drop would have been even more dramatic were it not for increases in violent crime due mostly to a nearly 56 percent spike in aggravated assaults. There were 226 aggravated assaults in 2006 and 352 last year.
The number of assaults was the city’s most since 1996, when Yakima was coming down from a 10-year explosion in crime that peaked, statistically, in 1988.
Robberies were actually down 14 percent. But the jump in assaults pushed the city’s rate of violent crime (rape, robbery, assault) to 6.8 incidents per 1,000. That was the city’s worst since 1997 but far from the record of 14.1 set in 1990.
Violent crime here was only slightly higher than three other major Washington cities — Seattle, Spokane and Kent — and lagged far behind Tacoma, which had a worst-in-the-state rate of 10.4 violent crimes per 1,000 for the second year in a row.
Among big cities, Tacoma and Everett also have the highest property crime rates, a dubious distinction held by Yakima in 2006.
Capt. Jeff Schneider, acting chief in place of Chief Sam Granato, who was out of town Monday, said he didn’t have any special insight into the decline in property crime.
The same is true of the increase in assaults. Schneider noted, however, that random stranger-on-stranger crime is extremely rare in Yakima.
“And even then, it’s more like bar-fight kind of stuff, not somebody walking their dog down the street and getting attacked,” he added. “That stuff just doesn’t happen.”
The overall decrease in crime is not news to Yakima police, said Schneider, who insisted that crime in the city is not nearly what is used to be when he was a rookie cop in 1984.
“Some days you could call it routinely dull around here,” he said. “That was never the case back then.”

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 577-7748 or at cbristol@yakimaherald.com.

Overall crime rates for Yakima Valley cities
Union Gap (pop. 5,700) — 136.8*
Toppenish (pop. 9,105) 82.5
Sunnyside (pop. 15,130) — 80.3
Yakima (pop. 82,940) — 76.3
Wapato (pop. 4,540) — 74.7
Grandview (pop. 9,150) — 70.7
Zillah (pop. 2,660) — 62.8
Mabton (pop. 2,080) — 49.0
Granger (pop. 2,955) — 40.9
Yakima County** (pop. 89,740) — 32.5
Selah (pop. 6,935) — 31.1
Tieton (pop. 1,200) — 9.2
Moxee (pop. 2,065) — 7.7
* Rate per 1,000 residents
** unincorporated areas of the county and towns of Harrah and Naches

Cities with the highest crime rates
Everett (pop. 101,800) — 91.6*
Tacoma (pop. 201,700) — 83.4
Yakima (pop. 82,940) — 76.3
Seattle (pop. 586.200) — 64.5
Spokane (pop 202,900) — 63.0
Kent (pop. 86,660) — 62.6
Federal Way (pop. 87,390) — 58.9
Vancouver (pop. 160,800) — 45.2
Bellevue (pop. 118,100) — 36.7
Spokane Valley (pop. 88,280) — 35.9
* Rate per 1,000 residents