Inova Health System and Inova Loudoun Hospital have filed an application with state health officials for a Certificate of Public Need (COPN) to build an 80-bed hospital on U.S. 50 in Loudoun County.
The site is bordered on the northwest by a portion of Racefield Road, and on the southeast by Broad Run. It is just west of the 98-acre site bisected by Gum Spring Road (Route 659) including Glascock Field, owned by Hospital Corporation of America (HCA).
"The formal application delivers on a promise from Inova and Inova Loudoun Hospital to put the next Loudoun County hospital on U.S. 50, in alignment with the long-term vision outlined in the county’s Comprehensive Plan for healthcare services," according to the announcement issued July 1 by Inova Health system.
As a first step toward accelerating delivery of expanded healthcare services, Inova is finalizing the engineering work required to obtain site-plan approval from the county to build a Healthplex on the property it owns on U.S. 50. Offering no inpatient beds, a Healthplex provides the cornerstone for a hospital and does not require a COPN from the state to provide emergency care, new physician offices or a wide range of outpatient medical services. Zoning approval for the Healthplex and hospital was obtained in February 2008.
Once the new facility is operational, Inova's Dulles South Medical Center–opened in July 2007 on Pinebrook Road off U.S. 50 about a mile east of the Healthplex–would "..slide over to the new facility," according to Tony Raker, director of Public Relations for Inova Health System. The Dulles South Medical Center currently provides emergency care, rehabilitation and radiology services.
“Having a hospital on Route 50 is a critical need for families who don’t have quick access to acute and emergency medical care,” said Randy Kelley, CEO of Inova Loudoun Hospital. “That is one reason why the county’s Comprehensive Plan recognized Route 50 as the location where the next hospital in Loudoun County should be built. Putting a hospital on Route 50 is justified now, based upon the population that is already there, and it ensures that need will not outstrip supply should the population along Route 50 increase in the future.”
Inova’s new hospital on U.S. 50 will include:
* 24-hour, 7-day-a-week emergency department and ambulance receiving station;
* Helipad for trauma-care transport and rapid medical-emergency response;
* 70 medical surgical general hospital beds
* 10 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) specialty beds
* 8 operating rooms
* CT scanner (computer tomographic scanning)
* MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)
* Ancillary support services
The hospital will follow a two-phase construction plan. Phase One will open all hospital services and 50 beds (40 medical surgical and 10 ICU). Phase Two will add the remaining 30 medical surgical beds.
“If Loudoun County government and the Commonwealth of Virginia endorse this plan and support our COPN and land-use applications, Inova’s hospital could be opened by December 2013,” said Kelley. “That is our goal, but of course the actual timelines are controlled by state and local governmental regulatory processes, and by other healthcare providers that might oppose the project and create delays.”
Loudoun’s Comprehensive Plan for healthcare encourages the development of higher-level, sophisticated medical services and tertiary care, so Loudoun residents do not need to leave the county to access that type of care. In addition, the Comprehensive Plan sets a goal of 20 minutes of drive time to emergency care for all county residents, and calls for a wide dispersal of hospital locations to ensure availability of those services in the event of disaster.
“Building a hospital on Route 50 not only improves access to medical services for families in southern Loudoun, but it enables Inova to accelerate growth of higher-level services at its Lansdowne campus,” said Knox Singleton, President and CEO of Inova Health System. “It also means that the medical services for those in western Loudoun will remain strong and vibrant at Inova’s Cornwall medical campus in Leesburg.”
Inova's Raker notes that by having the initial filing in by the July 1, 2009 deadline, it is expected that their COPN could be awarded in nine months to a year.
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