HCA Communications vice-president Mark Faust, told the Independent that, “It’s great news. It reflects the needs of the county and the region."
The proposed StoneSpring Medical Center would be constructed on a 50-acre property purchased by HCA in 2007. The completed facility would include a four-story building with 337,000 square feet of space, including a 124 acute-care beds, 40 child and adolescent psychiatric beds, diagnostic services, cardiac catheterization lab and seven operating rooms.
The project is still required to complete the special exception process for the land use, but this could be completed as early as summer 2010 with StoneSpring opening its doors in late 2015.
The prior HCA application in Ashburn—Broadlands Regional Medical Center—was the source of a long series of battles between Inova, HCA and the supporters on both sides. The legal wrangling and public debate over the project only concluded in Feb. 2009 with a final vote by the Loudoun Board of Supervisors to deny the special exception land use request. It was after this project was denied that HCA submitted a significant change request to the Virginia Health Commissioner to for approval of the new site.
StoneSpring may tread a very smoother path as it lacks a public outcry against the location. According to Faust, “Our proposal has been met with strong support. People see he need for another hospital in Loudoun.”
Shortly after the HCA announcement, Inova Health Systems announced that it would withdraw its pending COPN application for a hospital on Rt. 50, dismiss its pending lawsuit against HCA and not appeal the decision of the state health commissioner. The decision to approve the plans for Stonespring Medical Center effectively eliminated any chances that the Inova COPN would be approved.
A statement by Inova remarked how the decision followed the Inova position regarding the location of the facility, “The relocation of HCA’s project to Route 50 is consistent with Inova’s long standing position that the next hospital built in Loudoun County belongs on Route 50 and Inova wants to remove any impediment to HCA’s plans to build a hospital there.”
During the long struggle between Inova and HCA over the proposed hospital in Brambleton, location of the proposed hospital became a central theme in the debate—with HCA representatives claiming that the population on Rt. 50 would not support a hospital.
Inova Loudoun Hospital CEO Randy Kelly said that he plans to use the additional resources to “improve and expand health care services” in other parts of the county, particularly the medical care centers in the western parts of the Loudoun.
Earlier this month, Kelley criticized HCA and expressed concerns to the Washington Post that HCA would attempt to use the proposed Stonespring facility to shift beds and services to other facilities.
Loudoun Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott York (I-At Large) congratulated HCA for receiving the COPN, saying "Not only will this bring important additional medical services and choice in hospital care to Loudoun, it will also bring with it over 500 jobs and add to our commercial tax base since HCA is a tax-paying entity." While the Health Systems of Northern Virginia recommended denial because of site concerns and had requested that certain restrictions on the COPN to ensure that Inova's concerns were met, York said, "I am also very pleased to see that the Health Commissioner approved this application without encumbering their COPN with Inova Health System's suggested conditions for approval."
When asked, Faust replied that “This is a good faith application and it stands on its own merits.” He continued by saying that “Inova has said they will not interfere with StoneSpring. Their ongoing criticism of our site request speaks otherwise.”
While those tired of the debate may wish that the dispute between the two entities would stop, there seems very little sign that it will be—especially as a proposal for Loudoun's second hospital heads into the land use approval process.
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