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A pair of facilities changes set to begin in mid-June and early July will cause some temporary inconvenience and relocation of patients, but will eventually mean 20 more beds at Stanford Hospital that will be available year-round.

Starting in early July, unit C2 - a 22-bed unit once used as a skilled nursing facility - will be renovated to conform with new state building codes. The renovations, which entail creating an isolation room and upgrading the fire-alarm system throughout the unit, will add three new beds on C2, bringing the unit total to 25 beds.

The work will require the unit to be closed for five to six months. During that time, the patients now on C2 will be moved to unit B1, a 17-bed unit that has been used for the eating disorders program at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. To support the transition, the unit's nurse manager, Cecilia Cadet, and the unit staff for C2 will move to B1 along with the patients.

Because of the increased demand for med/surg beds at Packard hospital during the winter months, the eating disorders program has temporarily relocated to unit B1 in Stanford Hospital for the past few years, returning to Packard in the spring or summer.

Under a recently negotiated arrangement, however, the eating disorders program will move permanently on or around June 15 to a new home: leased space inside El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. While the program - the only one of its kind in Northern California - will be located at El Camino, it will continue to be developed and managed by Packard physicians, nurses and staff.

This change means that unit B1 will no longer have to give up its 17 beds each winter. The net increase in available med/surg beds is welcome news at a time when beds have become scarce because of increasing patient volumes.

"These are modest but important steps we're taking to put more staffed hospital beds into circulation and get us where we need to be," said Isabel Uibel, director of patient care services. She noted that hospital officials are working on a strategic plan to further increase the number of available beds at Stanford Hospital.

Because the renovations on C2 will result in five fewer med/surg beds while the work is going on, Uibel said officials will "put those renovations on a fast track to get them done as quickly as possible."