Pushed by affected person quantity predictions and a surplus building finances, College Well being is already planning expansions at its two new neighborhood hospitals at the moment beneath building.
The Bexar-County-owned hospital system’s Board of Managers authorised on Tuesday $90 million so as to add on extra inpatient mattress capability and outpatient examination rooms at Palo Alto Hospital on the South Facet and Retama Hospital on the far Northeast aspect.
Roughly $60 million was out there from the hospitals’ building finances, the remaining got here from the hospital’s reserve funds. The expansions are deliberate for 2028 and gained’t have an effect on the anticipated opening dates of the hospitals in 2027.
“After analyzing the anticipated affected person care volumes at every hospital and making an allowance for continued inhabitants progress in each of those areas, transferring ahead with growth now will save money and time,” College Well being President and CEO Edward Banos stated in a information launch. “This was no simple feat in as we speak’s financial setting.”
The expansions will embrace 20 further inpatient rooms at Retama Hospital, bringing the full variety of beds to 167. Eight further examination rooms might be added to the medical workplace constructing adjoining to the hospital.
At Palo Alto, one other 60 inpatient rooms might be added for a complete of 227 beds at opening, plus an additional 16 examination rooms within the adjoining medical workplace constructing.
The funding brings the full price ticket of the 2 hospital builds to $1.5 billion.
On the similar time, College Well being is within the strategy of opening a shuttered CHRISTUS hospital within the South Texas Medical Middle as Babcock Specialty Hospital, geared toward assuaging affected person quantity at its close by flagship hospital. All advised, the three new hospitals characterize a $1.7 billion funding.
“Doing this work now whereas the buildings are nonetheless beneath building reduces prices and avoids disruptive work in affected person care areas after the hospitals and medical workplace buildings open,” stated Brian Freeman, College Well being’s vp of capital enchancment tasks.
College Hospital within the South Texas Medical Middle has continued to often break affected person quantity data this yr. Officers stated the system is anticipating larger volumes of sufferers at every of its new neighborhood hospitals than initially predicted.
As Banos put it, the buildings had been designed with “a giant Lego on the underside,” he stated, permitting building groups so as to add considerably more room with out disrupting affected person care.
