Update: with photo and quotes
Centura Health will add 92 flexible-space beds to its burgeoning far-north campus in Westminster, nearly doubling the beds at its nearby St. Anthony North hospital, and thrusting the growing chain into the general health-building frenzy in northern Colorado.
Centura’s newest hospital and medical space will go up next to the recently-opened St. Anthony North Medical Pavilion, at 144th and I-25 (hospital handout)
Centura announced Friday it will spend $177 million beginning this spring to expand its just-opened St. Anthony North Medical Pavilion at 144th Avenue and I-25. (St. Anthony’s original north hospital is at 84th and Zuni, near the U.S. 36 Boulder Turnpike.) The newly-announced addition will include 60,000 square feet of physician clinic space, as Centura furthers the national movement of hiring more doctors in-house; outpatient treatment rooms, day surgery, women’s delivery and baby care rooms, a level III trauma center with ER, and 92 inpatient beds in a flexible configuration.
St. Anthony’s original north hospital has 138 beds.
Centura says it is building the new space to emphasize an integrated, patient-centered approach with a continuity of care, a model both public and private health organizations are moving toward.
Centura said the $177 million cost is through financing with Catholic Health Initiatives, co-owner of the Centura hospitals in Colorado with the Adventist Health System. The 13 hospitals in the group are Colorado’s largest system, and are non-profit.
Centura is also expanding its network to metro south, currently building the first full service hospital for Castle Rock. That 50-bed hospital, for $128 million, is expected to open in 2013.
Health care construction and hospital group mergers have been some of the most active economic sectors for Colorado in recent years. Exempla St. Joseph is rebuilding its central Denver hospital in a massive $630 million project that includes relocating city streets. St. Anthony Central moved its west Colfax facility to a brand new building overlooking Lakewood.
In northern Colorado where Centura’s new facility will chew at the edges, Banner Health and Poudre Valley Health, now part of the growing University of Colorado Health system, are also competing hard for patients. Those systems are vying with new construction, standalone ERs in each others’ back yards, and purchases of physician practices from Fort Collins to Greeley to Loveland. Banner has a pact to provide hospital space for Kaiser Permanente HMO’s northern patient expansion, while Poudre Valley/UCH has linked up with the major insurer Anthem.
A Centura spokesman said the new project is in line with recent trends of hospital staff physicians and adding beds, but the added space provides a chance to practice medicine differently. “Putting primary care, specialists, lab, imaging and other services together in a single location, along with acute care and inpatient services, is going to make a big difference both in terms of convenience and coordination of care,” Centura’s Andrew Wineke. “We call it the ‘health neighborhood’ concept – we want to meet as many of our consumers’ needs as possible at this one location. We expect this new campus will be a model for the rest of Centura Health in the coming years.”
In other southern expansions, Children’s Hospital Colorado will on Monday hold a topping out party for a new inpatient and outpatient branch in Highlands Ranch.