A rendering of HCA’s proposed new hospital near Ashland. (BizSense file)
The state health department’s consideration of a proposal by HCA Healthcare to build a new hospital in Hanover County continues.
HCA and its supporters advocated for the project during a meeting Wednesday with adjudication officers for the Virginia Department of Health.
The conference came after VDH staff in the spring recommended rejection of HCA’s application to build the $233 million hospital outside Ashland. Final consideration by State Health Commissioner Karen Shelton, who will decide the project’s fate, is anticipated in early October.
HCA wants to build a 60-bed acute-care hospital on a 40-acre site at 10054 Sliding Hill Road. Early this year it filed an application as part of Virginia’s certification of public need (COPN) program to secure the necessary state approval for the project.
Ryan Jensen
At Wednesday’s meeting, HCA Henrico Doctors’ Hospital CEO Ryan Jensen argued that the project should be approved because it would provide medical care that’s closer to the health system’s patients in Hanover and surrounding areas. HCA has dubbed the proposed facility “Ashland Hospital.” It would be a campus of Henrico Doctors’ Hospital.
“Patients do not simply go to the closest hospital to their home, and many patients prefer particular health systems to others,” Jensen said. “Henrico Doctors’ Hospital serves thousands of patients living in Hanover County. … These patients drive a considerable distance, often passing other hospitals along the way and many passing the Ashland hospital site. … We also know proximity and ease of access is an important factor in determining when patients decide to seek care.”
Elected state and county officials, local fire chiefs and medical practitioners also voiced support for the proposed hospital during the meeting.
Wednesday’s hearing, which is a regular feature of the state’s approval process for new medical facilities, came in the wake of a VDH staff report released in April that recommended denial of HCA’s proposal.
In VDH staff’s estimation, the health system’s application emphasized distance between its own facilities, without considering the proximity of non-HCA facilities. It also focused on interstate congestion as a barrier to care without considering alternative routes patients can travel, VDH Project Analyst Megan Schold said during Wednesday’s meeting.
“It does not address there are other options available,” Schold said. “There are other roads to take. It’s not I-95 or nothing.”
Schold said that HCA also didn’t provide requested data regarding ambulance travel times as part of its application. She said that although additional data was provided at the meeting, it didn’t change the staff recommendation to reject the application.
“(The Division of Certificate of Public Need) asked multiple times for quantitative data regarding wait times, transportation times, frequency of diversion from other hospitals if that’s an issue – any data that indicated that current EMS transportation times are not adequate,” she said.
HCA plans to equip the proposed Hanover facility by shuffling resources from its Retreat Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, which the health system says is outdated and sees relatively little demand for services.
“Relocating some of the hospital beds to Ashland will improve access for a significant number of our existing patients,” Jensen said. “Retreat has a number of patient rooms that don’t meet contemporary design standards, and relocating 60 beds from Retreat to Ashland will allow us to retire most of the out-of-date rooms at Retreat.”
Jensen said Retreat would remain open with 167 licensed beds should the Hanover hospital be permitted.
Retreat would lose two operating rooms, which would be relocated to the new Hanover hospital to help fill out that facility’s proposed complement of four operating rooms.
“If we had to decide today, two ORs would be relocated from the Henrico Doctors’ campus and two ORs would be relocated from Retreat Doctors’ Hospital,” Jensen said.
In HCA’s application for the hospital, it noted that four existing operating rooms in its local hospitals would be relocated to the proposed Hanover facility to help outfit it, but it didn’t identify which facilities would give up operating rooms.
Retreat’s cardiac catheterization lab also would be relocated to equip the proposed hospital, which is also planned to feature an MRI scanner and CT scanner.
VCU Health and Bon Secours also have expressed opposition to HCA’s proposal, with the rival health systems arguing, among other things, that HCA’s existing hospitals near the proposed new facility are underutilized and not that far away, according to the VDH staff report.
HCA also would need local approval for the project and is seeking a rezoning of the project site. The Hanover Planning Commission had at one point been slated to consider the case today (Thursday), but the case wasn’t listed on its agenda as of Wednesday afternoon.
HCA has filed project plans with the county that include eventual expansion of the hospital as well as medical office buildings on the site.
A March 2023 site plan of the proposed HCA hospital in Hanover County.
HCA Virginia Health System, the Virginia arm of Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare, operates six hospitals in the greater Richmond region. The proposed hospital would be the health system’s first in Hanover. HCA has a multistate presence that includes facilities in Virginia outside the Richmond region.
HCA filed its COPN application for the hospital in January. HCA’s effort to establish a hospital in Hanover comes as Bon Secours is pursuing a free-standing emergency center in a nearby location in the county. HCA also has proposed a free-standing emergency center of its own on the Sliding Hill Road site should the hospital be rejected.
A rendering of HCA’s proposed new hospital near Ashland. (BizSense file)
The state health department’s consideration of a proposal by HCA Healthcare to build a new hospital in Hanover County continues.
HCA and its supporters advocated for the project during a meeting Wednesday with adjudication officers for the Virginia Department of Health.
The conference came after VDH staff in the spring recommended rejection of HCA’s application to build the $233 million hospital outside Ashland. Final consideration by State Health Commissioner Karen Shelton, who will decide the project’s fate, is anticipated in early October.
HCA wants to build a 60-bed acute-care hospital on a 40-acre site at 10054 Sliding Hill Road. Early this year it filed an application as part of Virginia’s certification of public need (COPN) program to secure the necessary state approval for the project.
Ryan Jensen
At Wednesday’s meeting, HCA Henrico Doctors’ Hospital CEO Ryan Jensen argued that the project should be approved because it would provide medical care that’s closer to the health system’s patients in Hanover and surrounding areas. HCA has dubbed the proposed facility “Ashland Hospital.” It would be a campus of Henrico Doctors’ Hospital.
“Patients do not simply go to the closest hospital to their home, and many patients prefer particular health systems to others,” Jensen said. “Henrico Doctors’ Hospital serves thousands of patients living in Hanover County. … These patients drive a considerable distance, often passing other hospitals along the way and many passing the Ashland hospital site. … We also know proximity and ease of access is an important factor in determining when patients decide to seek care.”
Elected state and county officials, local fire chiefs and medical practitioners also voiced support for the proposed hospital during the meeting.
Wednesday’s hearing, which is a regular feature of the state’s approval process for new medical facilities, came in the wake of a VDH staff report released in April that recommended denial of HCA’s proposal.
In VDH staff’s estimation, the health system’s application emphasized distance between its own facilities, without considering the proximity of non-HCA facilities. It also focused on interstate congestion as a barrier to care without considering alternative routes patients can travel, VDH Project Analyst Megan Schold said during Wednesday’s meeting.
“It does not address there are other options available,” Schold said. “There are other roads to take. It’s not I-95 or nothing.”
Schold said that HCA also didn’t provide requested data regarding ambulance travel times as part of its application. She said that although additional data was provided at the meeting, it didn’t change the staff recommendation to reject the application.
“(The Division of Certificate of Public Need) asked multiple times for quantitative data regarding wait times, transportation times, frequency of diversion from other hospitals if that’s an issue – any data that indicated that current EMS transportation times are not adequate,” she said.
HCA plans to equip the proposed Hanover facility by shuffling resources from its Retreat Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, which the health system says is outdated and sees relatively little demand for services.
“Relocating some of the hospital beds to Ashland will improve access for a significant number of our existing patients,” Jensen said. “Retreat has a number of patient rooms that don’t meet contemporary design standards, and relocating 60 beds from Retreat to Ashland will allow us to retire most of the out-of-date rooms at Retreat.”
Jensen said Retreat would remain open with 167 licensed beds should the Hanover hospital be permitted.
Retreat would lose two operating rooms, which would be relocated to the new Hanover hospital to help fill out that facility’s proposed complement of four operating rooms.
“If we had to decide today, two ORs would be relocated from the Henrico Doctors’ campus and two ORs would be relocated from Retreat Doctors’ Hospital,” Jensen said.
In HCA’s application for the hospital, it noted that four existing operating rooms in its local hospitals would be relocated to the proposed Hanover facility to help outfit it, but it didn’t identify which facilities would give up operating rooms.
Retreat’s cardiac catheterization lab also would be relocated to equip the proposed hospital, which is also planned to feature an MRI scanner and CT scanner.
VCU Health and Bon Secours also have expressed opposition to HCA’s proposal, with the rival health systems arguing, among other things, that HCA’s existing hospitals near the proposed new facility are underutilized and not that far away, according to the VDH staff report.
HCA also would need local approval for the project and is seeking a rezoning of the project site. The Hanover Planning Commission had at one point been slated to consider the case today (Thursday), but the case wasn’t listed on its agenda as of Wednesday afternoon.
HCA has filed project plans with the county that include eventual expansion of the hospital as well as medical office buildings on the site.
A March 2023 site plan of the proposed HCA hospital in Hanover County.
HCA Virginia Health System, the Virginia arm of Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare, operates six hospitals in the greater Richmond region. The proposed hospital would be the health system’s first in Hanover. HCA has a multistate presence that includes facilities in Virginia outside the Richmond region.
HCA filed its COPN application for the hospital in January. HCA’s effort to establish a hospital in Hanover comes as Bon Secours is pursuing a free-standing emergency center in a nearby location in the county. HCA also has proposed a free-standing emergency center of its own on the Sliding Hill Road site should the hospital be rejected.
I’ve never understood the COPN process if it means the region gets a new hospital. It’s unfortunate this means Retreat hospital will continue to have a reduction in service. I wonder if eventually retreat would make a good hotel?
Retreat is a great emergency facility – & I think they should make the hospital a large medical office building. It already houses most of the amenities (on site testing equipment) of a hospital.
A certificate of public need simply reduces competition, and increases medical costs for everyone. It’s time for Virginia to eliminate this anti-competitive relic.
And without the COPN entities likes Bon Secours and HCA would have long pulled out all facilities from the City and its low income areas leaving those person without private transportation and limited public transportation who generally also have less access to doctors and routine care with very few options for care. But hey who wants a hospital that serves poor and indigent in their neighborhood anyway.
There are absolutely NO poor and indigent that live near Retreat. MCV takes most of the medicaid in the 23220 zip code. Retreat is an ER luxury for the Fan residents.
You don’t have to live next to it to use it but there are plenty of LMI households in Randolph and Carver (even Byrd Park has several very low income seniors too); plus families in Swansboro and Westover Hills Blvd going toward Midlothian will sometimes ask to go to or show up at Retreat as the wait is nowhere near the wait of VCU. And sometimes Retreat is faster than even Chippenham.
In this instance, increasing locations will not reduce medical costs – the only thing that will reduce medical costs is AI. Although, I would love to have a new facility in the Ashland area.
It would be nice if their Hanover Freestading imaging center would get a MRI with how long people have to wait in the area. Out patient labs were removed from Hanover after lab staff were let go about a year ago. Nursing staff run all the labs now.