Tampa Bay Business Journal Editor in Chief Alexis Muellner recently spoke with John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital, for a segment of the Florida Business Minds podcast.
Listen to this podcast HERE.
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Tampa General Hospital is preparing to break ground in the coming months on a new TGH Behavioral Health Hospital deep in the heart of Tampa’s medical district.
It’s just the latest in a series of steps taken by TGH to bolster the area’s burgeoning medical district, which has been drawing talent, biotech and venture capital to the region.
Tampa’s medical district is transforming the area into a complete ecosystem of health care innovation: increasing access, providing greater quality care at a lower cost to patients.
“Tampa General is committed to meeting the wide spectrum of health and wellness needs of our community, including all aspects of behavioral health, which are more in demand than ever before,” said John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital, in a statement.
The new TGH Behavioral Health Hospital will offer a full range of inpatient and outpatient services led by the region’s leading psychiatrists from USF Health.
The four-story, 83,000-square-foot facility will offer 96 inpatient beds. Tampa General Behavioral Health Hospital will be adjacent to the new Tampa General Rehabilitation Hospital.
Construction is expected to begin in 2022 or early 2023, opening is scheduled for late 2024.
Source: Florida Politics
Tampa General is launching the largest master facility plan in the hospital’s history to continue growing and innovating to meet the needs of the community and beyond for decades to come.
“Our vision at Tampa General is to become the safest and most innovative academic health system in America,” said John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. “It is critical that we continue to bring the most advanced technology and cutting-edge care to our patients in Florida and beyond. This is the largest master facility plan expansion in our hospital’s history, and it is an investment in our patients, in our academic health system, and in our community. It’s a key part of our efforts to improve the lives and health of Floridians.”
Tampa General Hospital is one of the most comprehensive academic medical facilities in Florida, serving a dozen counties with a population of over five million people – and growing at a rapid rate of 1.4 percent each year. With this growth, Tampa General projects an increase of patient admissions of 0.9 percent by the end of the decade.
Tampa General is strategically initiating this comprehensive master facility plan as part of its commitment to serving the Tampa Bay region’s increasing health care needs through its role as the area’s leading safety net hospital. In fiscal 2020, the academic medical center provided 34 percent of health charity care costs in Hillsborough and 17 percent across the Tampa Bay area. For that same period, Tampa General provided a net community benefit worth more than $182.5 million in the form of health care for underinsured patients, community education and financial support to community health organizations in Tampa Bay.
“This $550 million capital commitment allows us to invest in innovation and supports the creation of tomorrow’s TGH. We are truly building into the future,” said Kelly Cullen, EVP and chief operating officer of Tampa General.
Cullen is leading the development and implementation of the multi-year master facility plan.
Tampa General will add to both its geographic footprint and its vertical profile as it adds the following improvements and new structures:
- New ICU – now open, this project added 34 ICU rooms with upgraded and advanced care technologies
- Bayshore Pavilion vertical expansion – the project will add four floors to Tampa General’s Bayshore Pavilion (above the Emergency Department), providing 12 new operating rooms and 100 new beds
- Regional Burn Center renovation and expansion – now underway, this project will provide larger rooms, more efficient layouts and the new design will be complete in May 2022
- Renovate main operating room suite – the project will renovate operating rooms and modernize and upgrade equipment
- Freestanding emergency department – located one mile from the hospital’s main campus on Kennedy Boulevard and North Willow Avenue, the 15,000-square-foot facility will provide additional ED capacity to serve community needs
- New corporate parking garage – an eight-story, 2,000-space parking garage will be built at the TGH Corporate Center off Kennedy Boulevard to consolidate off-site team member parking
- TGH Brandon Healthplex Oncology Institute – new clinic space will be added to provide multidisciplinary integrated oncology services: a hub for diagnostic testing, treatments, and support services
- Purchase of Hillsborough Community College Davis Islands building – this building, adjacent to the main hospital campus, will be outfitted for administrative, education and training space
- Central energy plant expansion – the project will expand power generation capabilities to provide 100 percent redundant protected power
- Off-site sterile processing facility – this project will move sterile processing off of the hospital campus to streamline operational efficiencies to support surgical services operations
Construction of these projects will run from now through 2026. As TGH updates and adds to the 25-acre campus, covering over 3 million square feet, Tampa General will also renovate the main lobby of the hospital’s main campus, which will improve patient and visitor flow and efficiency.
The strategic master facility plan will have an estimated total economic impact of over $967 million for the Tampa Bay region and will create more than 5,952 total jobs.
The master facility plan launched in June with the opening of Tampa General’s new Intensive Care Unit, a $17.5 million project that includes 34 state-of-the-art ICU rooms and approximately 27,500 square feet of space. All rooms are equipped to become negative air pressure rooms to care for infectious diseases patients. The unit also features new “patient rooms of the future,” equipped with advanced care technologies.
These rooms allow caregivers to:
- Increase efficiency for our physicians and nurses to serve up information they need to provide better patient care
- Provide virtual care where patients can virtually connect with their family/loved ones, as well as physicians
- Support emergency events that use technology in the rooms by automating code blue identification
With the addition of the new unit, Tampa General, one of the largest hospitals in the nation, now has 1,041 beds.
“The opening of this ICU is a major milestone in Tampa General’s history as the first step of the master facility plan,” said Phillip S. Dingle, chairman of the TGH Board of Directors. “This master facility plan is designed to benefit our team members, physicians, patients and our entire community. Tampa General is growing along with our community and creating jobs and making an economic impact for the region. It is our duty to make sure that we can continue to live our shared purpose – to care for everyone, every day. These investments allow us to do just that.”
Tampa General Hospital and Kindred Healthcare, LLC broke ground on a freestanding 59-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital in the medical district of downtown Tampa. Announced as a joint venture in May 2020, the new facility will help meet the growing needs of Tampa Bay, the region and the state for rehabilitation recovery and care.
“Rehabilitation care plays an important role in the recovery of patients who have experienced debilitating illnesses and injuries,” stated John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. “As part of our vision to be the safest and most innovative academic health system in America, we’re proud to partner with Kindred to employ the latest innovation and technology to enhance access to these crucial services.”
The new rehabilitation hospital is located on Kennedy Boulevard between Oregon Avenue and Willow Avenue and brings downtown Tampa one step further in the development of a fully realized medical district that will attract the best scientists and physicians to the region and transform the area into a center for healthcare innovation. The rehabilitation hospital is projected to be approximately 80,000 square feet and cost $35 million. Kindred will manage the day-to-day operations of the new hospital, which is projected to employ more than 140 caregivers and staff. Tampa General Hospital will provide medical support services, such as imaging, lab and surgical procedures. It is expected to officially open in February 2022.
Tampa General Hospital currently operates an inpatient rehab facility that is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). Clinical teams will ultimately move to the new site, while Tampa General Hospital will continue to provide pediatric and outpatient rehabilitation at alternate sites.
A small, physically distant groundbreaking ceremony was held on January 18, 2021. In attendance were John Couris, president and CEO, Tampa General, Russ Bailey, president, Kindred Rehabilitation Services, and Cleve Haralson, vice president of capital development for Kindred Healthcare.
“Breaking ground on Kindred’s first freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Florida is a great way to start 2021,” said Russ Bailey, president, Kindred Rehabilitation Services. “Working together with Tampa General, we can bring a dedicated intensive rehabilitative facility to the Tampa Bay region that will help patients achieve their best possible recovery.”
The new inpatient rehabilitation hospital will care for adults recovering from conditions such as stroke, neurological disease, injury to the brain or spinal cord and other debilitating illnesses or injuries. The new facility will offer state-of-the-art technology and feature all private rooms. It will also have a secured brain injury unit with private dining and a therapy gym.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for inpatient rehabilitation services,” noted Couris. “Some patients need specialized help with ventilator recovery and rebuilding their strength and function. While we hope that the pandemic is not a major consideration at the time of opening the new rehabilitation hospital, it’s good for our region to know that we’re here to help when needed.”
Health Affairs Journal projects that 700,000 survivors of COVID-19-related hospitalization will require inpatient rehabilitative care. “We have the resources to help patients reduce disability and create the best opportunity for patients to achieve a full recovery,” said Bailey. “Tampa General’s long experience as a CARF-accredited rehabilitation hospital is an added benefit and will help establish our new facility as a strong resource for the community.”
Transitional living apartments designed to simulate a residential apartment will enable patients to heal in a personalized and private environment as they prepare to return to independent living. Patients will also experience specially planned rooms to treat dialysis patients and programs dedicated to neurological conditions, stroke, brain injury and amputation recovery.
Source: TGH
Tampa General Hospital is expanding its reach by strengthening its partnership with the University of South Florida and launching a new line of urgent care clinics.
During a USF board of trustees meeting Thursday, the hospital’s CEO, John Couris, said he wants to help create a “medical district” in and around downtown Tampa with the help of USF Health and its Morsani College of Medicine.
In addition to Tampa General committing to a $20 million lease of 25,000 square feet of space inside the medical school’s new building downtown, Couris and USF medical school dean Dr. Charles Lockwood want to create a more seamless process for patients being treated by USF or Tampa General physicians.
The new joint venture would create a “management services organization” that would streamline services, from medical records to scheduling patients between appointments at USF, Tampa General and private practice physicians with privileges at both places.
“Fifty percent of our admissions come from private practice partners,” Couris said. “With this venture, we’ll be able to provide administrative services to those physicians and create a more integrated system for patients.”
The goal is to create one health care system that can be expanded in the future to include others, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital or health care offices in Lakeland, Couris said. He described the venture as based on “inclusiveness.”
“The goal isn’t to make the hospital bigger,” he said. “It’s to collaborate with more doctors and hospitals to improve quality and lower costs for patients. We don’t have to employ everybody for that to happen, but there needs to be a nucleus.”
For example, Couris said that even though Tampa General and USF Health partner in many ways already, they each operate their own appointment scheduling programs, which slows down the process for patients. This new venture would change that.
Couris and Lockwood will appear again before USF’s trustees in August to seek final approval.
As for the medical district, Couris said connecting the dots between health care specialties and partners across the region would help draw more doctors and researchers to Tampa Bay.
“Most great cities have medical districts, which are concentrations of health services and research, which attract great scientists,” he said. As examples, he cited Houston, Dallas and Boston — cities with academic and private partnerships to create research hubs and health care options for patients.
Tampa General’s presence in the new medical schooling building — which, when completed, will include an urgent care clinic, cardiovascular clinical space and other medical offices — is a piece of that.
The hospital is also opening a 200-bed acute care rehabilitation center near its campus, across the street from the Oxford Exchange. It would connect to a future freestanding emergency department in Tampa, the University of Tampa’s nursing program, the new USF medical school, and USF’s downtown medical training and simulation facility, known as CAMLS.
“We have all these pieces coming together that are beginning to take shape,” Couris said. “That concentration will only bring more medical talent to Tampa Bay.”
In addition, Tampa General announced Thursday that it is joining with Fast Track Urgent Care to operate 10 urgent care clinics in Tampa Bay, including two in Pinellas County. The 50-50 partnership marks the first time Tampa General has offered freestanding clinical care in Pinellas.
Fast Track operates eight clinics in the region, including in Seminole and St. Petersburg. Tampa General operates two urgent care clinics in Hillsborough County, but the new partnership will fold them all into one network known as “TGH Urgent Care powered by Fast Track.”
Couris said he hopes to expand to 15 to 20 centers in the next three-to-five years.
“I like the idea of partnering with someone who is already in this line of work and doing a great job,” he said. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
Fast Track was the first organization in the Tampa Bay area to be certified by the Urgent Care Association of America. Dr. Daron G. Diecidue, the founder and CEO of Fast Track Urgent Care, will continue to lead the business.
Overall, Tampa General’s health system includes 15 medical group locations, 14 imaging centers in partnership with Tower Radiology, the Brandon Healthplex, and the TGH Advanced Organ Disease and Transplantation Institute at Lee Health in Fort Myers.
Couris said the hospital also plans to build a stronger presence in neighboring Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Manatee counties.
Source: Tampa Bay Times