The most recent expansion will include a new 45,000-square-foot, two-story inpatient building once completed in December 2015. The hospital will expand from the current 10 beds to 48 private medical/surgical beds, including six intensive care unit beds.
The first two of six surgical ICU beds will open in January.
The expansion will also more than double the size of the existing pharmacy. It will add 45-50 new jobs once completed.
Steve Mombach, vice president of ambulatory services at TriHealth, said as part of the project, the hospital will construct a one-story addition on the south side of the existing surgery/inpatient building to expand the operating room.
That 3,000-square-foot addition will be complete next month, Mombach said, and then construction crews will move on to the two-story addition.
TriHealth officials estimated the overall capital investment into the Bethesda Butler campus at about $45 million since purchasing the former Butler County Medical Center in 2012, including a new $15 million emergency department.
TriHealth’s top officials, including John Prout, president and chief executive officer, and Jerry Oliphant, executive vice president and chief operating officer, met Friday on the Bethesda Butler campus with city of Hamilton officials and members of the news media to provide an update on the health system’s vision for Butler County.
Prout said TriHealth is still in negotiations with McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford to become an affiliation partner for the county’s last independent hospital.
“Talks continue to progress and I’m kind of hopeful it will work out,” Prout said, adding there could be news to announce in a few weeks.
Prout said when the Cincinnati health system purchased the Butler County Medical Center, it was a “daytime, surgery-driven” campus that has now shifted to a 24-hour operation driven by consumers and physicians locating to the site.
“Health care is complicated for the patient. … We’re trying to connect the dots,” Prout said.
Just last month, TriHealth opened a nearly 50,000-square-foot location of Group Health West Chester, a multi-specialty physicians group, at 8040 Princeton Glendale Road. The facility has 75 employees and will increase to 115 jobs in the next two years.
TriHealth is one of several health systems with active construction projects across Butler County.
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is spending $160 million at its Liberty Twp. campus to add a proton therapy and research center for cancer, 28 more inpatient beds and an urgent care.
The UC Health system is spending several million dollars to add primary care centers in Trenton and Liberty Twp.
Dayton-based Premier Health will mark the grand opening of Atrium Health Center Trenton next week. The $4 million facility, in partnership with Edgewood City Schools, will house medical and outpatient services, primary care offices and the school district’s new central registration offices.
Along with its new 17-bed emergency department opened in 2013, TriHealth has also added locations of its TriHealth Cancer and Heart Institutes and primary care offices in Hamilton, said Chuck Brown, executive director at Bethesda Butler Hospital.
Brown said visits to the emergency department now exceed 1,000 per month, putting the hospital “ahead of the growth plan.”
“The emergency department has exceeded our expectations; we did in year one what we expected in year three,” Mombach said.
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