By Kyle LoJacono
The long awaited Medical Center of Trinity will open shop to its first patients in just more than six months.
The new facility is set to open Nov. 11 on the southeast corner of SR 54 and Little Road in Trinity and will replace the 40-year-old Community Hospital in New Port Richey, according to hospital spokeswoman Mary Sommise. The construction comes with a near $200 million price tag.
Leigh Massengill, Community Hospital’s CEO, said about 25 percent of her daily activities are devoted solely to the new facility, but most of what she does has at least something to do with the approaching opening.
“It’s really starting to pick up,” Massengill said. “The construction is almost completely done and then we’ll start the rest of installation. It’s getting close and it’s exciting.”
Massengill said she expects the facility will start having equipment installed in late July to early August.
The new facility will be five stories tall and 400,000 square feet, plus another 90,000 square feet for a medical office building. It is built to be able to easily add additional stories or wings as needed.
The new location sits on 55 acres, which will allow the new hospital to expand as well. Community Hospital on Marine Parkway has virtually no room for future expansions.
“I couldn’t be more excited with the opportunity to offer better healthcare to the community,” Massengill said. “The New Port Richey site is 40 years old, so this gives us a chance to bring in the best technology for the next 40. We want to serve both the traditional market in New Port Richey, while reaching out to the communities in Trinity, Odessa, Land O’ Lakes and the rest of central Pasco.”
Massengill said all the services of Community Hospital will be offered at the new facility.
“We’ll expand from there,” Massengill said.
All medical records will become electronic once the move is made. This will eliminate a lot of paper and also allow for doctors to share medical information more quickly.
The added space will allow every room to be a private suite at the new facility, including 30 in the emergency department. Community Hospital treated 76,113 patients last year.
The emergency department will also be near the cardiac catheterization laboratory, which is where doctors can look for blockages and other problems with a patient’s heart. The proximity of the department and the lab will allow for faster diagnoses and treatment of heart and other circulator system problems.
The Medical Center of Trinity will have much more space than the older hospital, but Massengill said the look and feel is where the main differences between the two facilities will be the most contrasting.
“We don’t want it to look and feel like a hospital,” Massengill said. “We want it to look like a nice hotel. We want to get away from the traditional hospital beige colors and make it look like a nice hotel suite.”
Like an upscale hotel, every suite at the Trinity facility will have its own bathroom with shower, room service, Internet access and a 32-inch high definition TV. Patients will even be able to watch videos to educate themselves about their condition and treatments on demand.
Its maternity suites are also designed to provide comforting care following the baby’s birth. A team of registered nurses specializing in labor delivery and newborn care, a certified childbirth educator, lactation consultant and support staff will work with expectant mothers alongside their physician to provide care during labor and delivery. Additionally, neonatology services will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for high-risk labor deliveries.
The maternity center will feature AirStrip OB Technology, a patient monitoring system that allows obstetricians to remotely access fetal heart rate in virtual real-time.
Community Hospital currently has 1,000 employees. Massengill said she expects the new facility to make more jobs, but did not know how many. She added the older facility will be kept open as a satellite emergency department and behavioral health facility.
“There are no plans to tear down the original building right now,” Massengill said.
The project also includes widening Little Road from SR 54 south the Mercy Way to account for the increased traffic expected to come with the new hospital.
For more information on Medical Center of Trinity, visit www.MedicalCenterTrinity.com or call (727) 834-4000.
