Construction set to begin on new Provo hospital

PROVO — Construction will begin next month on a new 40-bed hospital that will specialize in long-term acute care.

Groundbreaking for the two-story, 48,794-square-foot Utah Valley Speciality Hospital is planned for Nov. 2.

Construction is expected to take up to 11 months with the grand opening anticipated in fall 2006, said Chris Bergh, spokesman for Ernest Health, Inc., based in Albuquerque, N.M. The new hospital will be located in the Riverwoods Research and Business Park, 306 W. River Bend Lane.

Physicians mostly will refer patients to the hospital, which has the aim of providing cheaper medical care than traditional hospitals. Medical insurance companies often encourage patients to transfer to such facilities after they are stabilized.

The hospital will specialize in patients suffering from injuries or illnesses that require stays of an average of 25 days.

"We don't have patients who come live with us forever like a nursing home," Bergh said.

"We will provide specialized nursing and rehabilitation services for patients who need more acute medical care," Bergh said. "They still are very ill, but they really don't need to be in the traditional acute care hospital any more, like Utah Valley Regional (Medical Center)."

The hospital will not have an emergency room. No surgeries will be performed there, according to a Provo City Planning Commission staff report.

The hospital will have an "open medical staff" of pulmonologists, cardiologists and internal medicine specialists.

"They can have privileges to practice," Bergh said. "We won't hire physicians to work for us. We'll work with members of the existing medical community."

Utah Valley Speciality Hospital will be close to other medical-services offices in the area, the hospital's architects noted in a letter to Provo's planning coordinator.

Plans for the hospital were approved over the summer.

The hospital will employ about 120 people, Bergh said.

Ernest Health is a private, for-profit company founded in January 2004, Bergh said. The first hospital was completed in early 2005.

"We look for small- to mid-size markets that may be underserved in terms of post-acute services," Bergh said. "Primarily Western, mountain states, but clearly we're in Texas. Our business plan in not limiting us."

In addition to long-term, acute-care hospitals, such as Utah Valley Speciality Hospital, the company builds and operates patient-rehabilitation hospitals, Bergh said.

"In addition to the Provo site, we have four other facilities that are in the construction phase," Bergh said. "One is in Laredo, Texas, one in Mesquite, Texas, one in Post Falls, Idaho, and in Prescott Valley, Ariz."

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com