By B.C. Manion
A hospital with an incredibly familiar name in Tampa has a new one now and that change is part of an even larger change announced last week by Adventist Health System.
University Community Hospital is now Florida Hospital Tampa and the Pepin Heart Institute has been renamed to Florida Hospital Pepin Institute.
They join Florida Hospital Carrollwood, Florida Hospital Connerton Long Term Acute Care, Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital and Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel to form the new Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division.
In total, the facilities represent more than 1,000 beds.
Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, now under construction, has a planned opening date of October 2012, said John Harding, president and chief executive officer for the Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division.
“That facility is going up very quickly. It will be entirely enclosed by the end of the month,” Harding said. “That is a large economic investment in this community, to the tune of about $160 million.”
Overall, Adventist expects to have an economic impact of a half-billion dollars during the next five years in the Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division.
It expects to create about 400 new jobs within the next 12 months.
The name change signals a new initiative aimed at elevating healthcare for patients, Harding said.
“The research suggested that we needed to have a partner in academics,” Harding said.
Along those lines, the Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division will be working much more extensively with the University of South Florida. The partnership is expected to create new opportunities that will give Adventist patients access to the university’s physicians and its clinical research, said Michael Schultz, president and CEO of the Florida Region and executive vice president of the Florida Division of Adventist Health System.
“There will be more to announce in the days and weeks to come,” he said.
“Collectively, we want to bring value to the medical community in the north Tampa Bay area. By the north Tampa Bay area, I’m talking about north Tampa, Pasco and Pinellas counties,” Schultz said. “We wanted to bring value, or why do it?”
Adventist is aiming to provide integrated, coordinated care to patients, he said.
“What do I mean by integrated, coordinated care? To me, it means the right care, at the right time, at the right location for the best possible clinical outcome,” Schultz said.
Dr. Stephen Klasko, dean of the College of Medicine at USF, said the initiative will enable the university to have a stronger footprint in north Tampa and also in Pasco County, one of the fastest-growing places in the region.
“We’ll be able to combine some of the education and research and clinical services together into something very exciting over this whole north Tampa region,” Klasko said.
“Having an academic medical center in your area is only a good thing.”
The collaboration may prove particularly beneficial to Pasco residents, he said, “because of our relationship, these hospitals will have more of the subspecialists available, so you won’t necessarily have to go into Tampa or Orlando.”
Hospitals in the Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division “will have more of the clinical research,” he said, which will give patients access to more cutting-edge care.
“We think we can be the glue between a great hospital system, the community and the doctors in that area,” Klasko said.
The relationship between the university and Adventist Health System also will foster a new pipeline of physicians and other medical care providers for the Pasco communities, Klasko said.
As USF’s medical and nursing students spend time in the Pasco communities, Klasko said, some are likely to think: “ ‘Boy, this would be a good place to live and work.’ ”
“I think you’re going to be hearing a lot more about some of the synergies between Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division and USF,” Klasko predicted.
The Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division completes Florida Hospital’s Central Florida network of care, which now connects 22 hospitals from Flagler Beach to Tarpon Springs, and all points in between, Shultz said.
Adventist has a long history of meeting healthcare needs for Floridians, Harding said. It has been in Central Florida for more than 100 years and its church has been in healthcare for nearly 150 years.
Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, now in the midst of construction, has been designed with the patient in mind, said Brian Adams, its chief operating officer.
“You’ll be able to walk in the front door and literally in less than 50 feet be on the MRI scanner,” he said. That facility will open with 80 beds and is designed to grow along with the community, ultimately becoming a 288-bed facility.
“It’s designed to grow so you’ll never have to build in front of the front door of the hospital,” he said, eliminating the confusion that sometimes occurs when a hospital expands and what was originally the front door ends up being on the middle of the campus.
The idea is to make it easy for people to find their way around, he said.
“When people are receiving healthcare or they’re visiting people in a hospital, they’re at a level of stress. Not ever having to build in front of a front door helps provide some of the healing.”
