UK HealthCare looks to add regional hospital, expand workforce in next 5 years
UK HealthCare will focus on expanding its workforce and adding additional medical centers in the next several years, leaders said during the board of trustees health care retreat on Thursday.
The UK HealthCare strategic plan for the next five years includes plans for opening two additional floors at the Chandler Hospital Pavilion A and creating a regional hospital for patients to easily access. Those moves will help increase the capacity of UK hospitals, which were already nearing full capacity before the pandemic influx, said Dr. Mark Newman, executive vice president of health affairs.
Growing the UK HealthCare workforce is the biggest challenge that needs to be addressed, Newman said, adding that the number of staff members “has not stayed in line with the growth in demand for our services.”
The fifth floor of Pavilion A is scheduled to be complete on July 1, 2022, with the 12th floor opening 12 to 18 months after that, Newman said in an interview. The two additional floors will add 128 inpatient beds.
Opening those floors will require thinking about the future of health care and designing the floors to adapt to what comes next, Newman said.
To be able to reach more patients, UK hopes to add a regional hospital and several destination centers for easier patient access. The goal is to find a location for the regional hospital and break ground in 2023 or 2024, Newman said. The location would likely be outside of central Lexington, making it easier to access for patients who live outside of the area.
“We can’t be patient-centric if patients can’t get to us,” Newman said. “When we talk to our patient advocacy groups, family advocacy groups, it is about getting in. It’s about ease of appointment, ease of getting admission.”
New facilities would mean fewer patients would have to come to Chandler Hospital for treatment.
“We want patients to be able to get to us because we don’t want people to have to go out of Kentucky,” Newman said. “That’s the goal for us, is regardless of the severity of the disease, you can get that care done in Kentucky.”
Adding new facilities helps UK serve patients, said Mark Birdwhistell, vice president for health system administration.
“People are counting on UK HealthCare to be there when they need them,” Birdwhistell said. “It’s a challenge, but the majority of the time, we’re able to be there. But we should make it seamless, and we’re not quite seamless yet.”
The hospital system also has to overcome workforce shortages, Newman said. Before the pandemic, there was already a nursing shortage, said Peter Gilbert, UK HealthCare’s chief operating officer.
“We were already dealing with a shortage, so we went in (to the pandemic) lean, and that made all of the changes that we saw that much more dramatic,” Gilbert said.
Additionally, the pandemic has made health care providers reconsider what type of job they want to have, Newman said.
“I think (a thing) that COVID has probably done is it’s made people think twice about what they want to do on a day-to-day basis and potentially try to do things where they’re not on the front lines,” Newman said.
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 1:20 PM.