An artist's rendering of the "future face" for Parkridge Medical Center on McCallie Avenue.Hospital construction spending
* Parkridge Health System -- Planning $62 million in expansions and renovations at its downtown campus. The changes will include large new operating rooms, a new interventional catheterization lab, newly remodeled patient rooms, a new pharmacy and a new entrance. * Erlanger Health System -- Erlanger just obtained $70 million in bond money to help finance a series of projects: a $50 million expansion of the Erlanger East campus into a full-service hospital, a new $11.5 million children's and women's ambulatory center, and $8.5 million in surgical improvements and a new orthopedic center. * CHI Memorial Health Care System -- A $318 million multiphase expansion at Memorial's downtown and Hixson campuses was completed in June. The 485,692-square-foot downtown project included two building additions and multiple renovation projects. The work included the seven-story, 360,000-square-foot North Tower, which has been called the Guerry Heart and Vascular Center, and the 125,692-square-foot South Tower renovation, which included a new hybrid operating room.
Erlanger Hospital is seen from the UTC library's balcony in this Dec. 9, 2014, file photo. What is a Certificate of Need?
A Certificate of Need ("CON") is a permit to establish or expand a health care facility or service. The program regulates the state's health care industry to prevent uncontrolled growth of certain facilities and services that could increase the cost of health care or take away ability of full-service providers to provide the uncompensated care they give. Source: Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency
The North Tower building at Memorial Hospital nears completion on June 5, 2014. Read more
* Parkridge Medical Center investing in new MRI unit * Grandview Medical Center transitions to Parkridge Health System * Chattanooga's Memorial Hospital unveils $85 million heart center * Memorial Hospital shows off the latest piece of its $318 million expansion project * With profits back, Erlanger begins its biggest building expansion in nearly 20 years * Erlanger doctors, executives 'tear down the wall' for new orthopedic center
Doctors and nurses: Time to make more room for construction workers.
Parkridge Health System is the latest area medical center aiming for a major expansion plan in the next several years. Hospital officials revealed last week they are planning a $62 million expansion that will completely overhaul two floors at the five-story hospital and create a sleek new entrance for the 44-year-old downtown facility.
"This is easily the biggest expansion at our downtown campus in the past 20 years," said Jim Coleman, chief operating officer for Parkridge Health System, which is owned by the Nashville-based, for-profit HCA Healthcare.
The expansion will result in "an entirely new Parkridge," Coleman said.
"It will get us in a more modern, state-of the art configuration. It really helps us address so many of the design flaws hospitals face with patient flow."
The proposed project is the latest of several recent HCA investments in the Parkridge system. The hospital added an Adult and Senior Services behavioral health campus in 2013, and purchased the former Grandview Medical Center in Marion County -- now Parkridge West -- in 2014.
The two other large health systems in town, CHI Memorial Health Care System and Erlanger Health System, are pouring millions of dollars into their own expansions and renovations. And it's all happening amid massive upheaval in the health care industry and the concern over whether Tennessee will ever expand its Medicaid program -- something hospitals, including HCA, have said is crucial for their bottom lines.
Chattanooga is a highly competitive market, with Erlanger holding about 32 percent of the market share, Memorial 29 percent, and Parkridge 18 percent. Hospitals vie for patients, but also for specialists, who often prefer the most up-to-date facilities to perform procedures on their patients.
Still, Coleman said Parkridge's plans have been brewing for years, and are not a response to the other hospitals' recent capital projects.
"I think all of us are in the same boat," he said. "We're in the same zone when it comes to facility age, and you've got to modernize to get our physicians and patients a better experience. I don't think it's necessarily a reaction or one or the other."
Jim Christofferson, general counsel for the Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency, said competition and economic issues, like the question of Medicaid expansion, don't necessarily dictate a hospital's decision to get a face-lift.
"Regardless of what the economy is, hospitals have a lifespan. Over that lifespan, certain things need to be renovated and replaced due to age and advances in technology," Christofferson said. "Some are trying to fill their beds, and others are bursting at the seams."
Tennessee requires health care facilities to apply for "certificates of need," or approval from the state agency, for capital projects larger than $5 million. The idea is to regulate growth and prevent an arms race that would lead to duplication and overuse of services.
Christofferson said such problems typically arise when hospitals are adding expensive new services, adding beds or creating a new facility -- not when they are renovating.
Parkridge submitted its application Friday for its proposed expansion.
The 275-bed hospital hopes to add a new interventional catheterization laboratory in its cardiovascular program; expand the size of its operating rooms; create a new pharmacy; increase the number of bays in its post-anesthesia unit; renovate inpatient rooms and add a new bone densitometry unit in its imaging department, among other changes.
Except for the cath lab and the bone density imaging unit, the hospital is not adding any new beds or services, Coleman said -- though it will update its technology.
While budgeting for new hospital construction has remained relatively flat, hospital renovation and infrastructure projects both increased 2 percent this past year, according to the 2015 Hospital Construction Survey put out each year by Health Facilities Management, a publication of the American Hospital Association.
Moreover, 44 percent of survey respondents said they expected capital budgets for hospital renovations to go up in 2015.
Parkridge is set to have a June 24 hearing on its certificate of need. If that is approved, Coleman said, the work will be planned for a couple of phases, starting with surgical renovations and likely ending with its new exterior.
"This will be the new face of Parkridge," Coleman said.
Contact staff writer Kate Belz at kbelz@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.