Sheltering Arms and VCU Health System are moving forward with plans for a new hospital in eastern Goochland County, just over the Henrico County line.
The 114-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital would be located on a 25-acre site in the West Creek Medical Park off Broad Street Road, just east of the state Route 288 interchange. The planned state-of-the-art destination hospital would replace two Sheltering Arms locations and a VCU Health rehab hospital.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be able to move this project forward and to be able to provide this level of rehabilitative care to our community,” said Mary Zweifel, interim CEO of Sheltering Arms.
The two hospital systems announced a joint venture to build the hospital in May.
The hospital will be named Sheltering Arms Rehab Institute-A Joint Venture with VCU Health System, and it is expected to open in 2020, though no firm timeline is in place for construction. It still needs regulatory approval.
The hospital will provide inpatient rehabilitation, which includes caring for individuals who have undergone strokes, spinal cord injuries or brain injuries, as well as those in need of general rehabilitation or various neurological diseases and disorders.
It will be a “full service rehabilitation hospital,” Zweifel said, meaning physicians will oversee the patients seven days a week, complemented by around-the-clock nursing services and patients will receive a minimum of three hours of therapy every day.
Sheltering Arms and VCU Health still have to submit a Certificate of Public Need — or COPN — application to the Virginia Department of Health. They plan to do so later this month with a decision expected from the department by the summer of 2017.
The two hospital systems also are in the midst of determining the estimated cost of the facility, which they will submit with the COPN application.
Zweifel said that, since things are still up in the air around the hospital’s timeline and cost, it is unclear if the Sheltering Arms-VCU Health joint venture would buy the 25 acres in West Creek Medical Park. The park is about a mile west of Short Pump Town Center.
“The purchase is really dependent on the approval of the COPN,” Zweifel said. “We need to put the horse before the cart.”
She said she is “optimistic” about the Certificate of Public Need approval process.
The new hospital would consolidate Sheltering Arms’ two hospitals — one in Hanover County (next to Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center) and in Chesterfield County (as part of Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center) — with VCU’s Health’s rehab hospital at 1300 E. Marshall St.
The two Sheltering Arms locations have a total of 68 beds while VCU Health’s rehab hospital has 46 beds — for a total of 114 beds to be combined into one hospital location in Goochland.
It is unclear what is going to happen to those hospital buildings when the new facility opens.
Employees of the new hospital will work for the joint venture created by Sheltering Arms and VCU Health. Any Sheltering Arms employees who wish to work at the new hospital will become employees with the new business entity. New employees will be hired as the need of the hospital dictates, Zweifel said.
Sheltering Arms has been searching for space on which to build a new hospital for several years, Zweifel said, and brought VCU Health in as a partner before finalizing a decision.
“Standalone (health care) organizations have some challenges, so by having partners, we know we’re able to consolidate our best practices together, provide greater efficiency — and really that’s why we moved into this joint venture, to bring the best of both worlds together to develop a destination rehabilitation hospital,” Zweifel said.
She added that the facility will be a training hospital for VCU Health students as well, so new evidence-based practices and research developed in the university’s academic setting will more quickly reach patients within the hospital.
West Creek was an ideal location, Zweifel said, because it provides enough room and ample parking for patients, is located near major roads for easy access and the development is planning a hotel plus additional retail for patients’ convenience.
Founded in 1889, Sheltering Arms has two hospitals and 11 outpatient centers throughout the region.
Sheltering Arms has an average daily census of 57 (of its 68 beds), which Zweifel said is a high occupancy that helps illustrate the need for a new rehab hospital in the Richmond area.
The original Sheltering Arms hospital, located on East Clay Street, now houses VCU’s health administration graduate school program.
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