Valley Medical Center announced Tuesday it will appeal the Washington State Department of Health’s decision to award 58 beds to MultiCare Health System and no beds to VMC.

In July of 2010, VMC submitted a Certificate of Need (CoN) application to the department requesting 60 beds. MultiCare applied for 58 beds for a hospital it is proposing to build on the site of its Urgent Care clinic in Covington, and Auburn Regional Medical Center applied for 70 beds.

“We believe the residents of Covington and Maple Valley do need more access to ambulatory emergency services and to meet this need we have expanded our Urgent Care clinic and will break ground on an Emergency Department in Covington Towne Center early in 2011,” said Rich Roodman, Valley Medical Center CEO. “With full service inpatient care only minutes away at VMC, we feel that it is a bigger benefit to the region to expand the number of beds at our facility which is equipped with a Level III Trauma Center and comprehensive specialty services.”

The Department of Health CoN program is a regulatory process that requires certain health care providers to obtain state approval before building certain types of facilities or offering new or expanded services. The CoN process is intended to help ensure that facilities and new services proposed by health care providers are needed for quality patient care within a particular region or community.