The exodus of several major hospitals out of Denver has sparked some well-placed worries, especially as the city’s population grows. So it’s a relief to know that St. Joseph Hospital not only plans to stay but intends to modernize and expand.
St. Joseph is buying the site abandoned by The Children’s Hospital near downtown Denver, where it plans to build a medical campus with specialty pavilions to eventually replace its aging facility near 19th and Franklin. The project has a completion date of 2012.
The development will be an asset to the Denver urban core, which is expected to grow by 20,000-plus residents in the next two decades. It also would help ensure that central Denver has a modern hospital for the future and more emergency room capacity.
Without it, Denver Health, Presbyterian/St. Luke’s and the few remaining hospitals would become overwhelmed and more emergency vehicles would be forced to travel several miles to Aurora or Lakewood.
Children’s is moving later this year from Denver to Fitzsimons in Aurora, where the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center already has set up shop, having exited most of its old buildings at 9th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. St. Anthony Central in west Denver plans to move to Lakewood by 2010. All three have emergency rooms that play a key role in treating the city’s sick and injured. Their planned departures have left some city officials worried about the capability of remaining hospitals to pick up the slack.
St. Joseph has 50,000 emergency room visits a year. Chief executive Robert Minkin said the new facility will be able to double capacity to 100,000 emergency room visits per year.
St. Joseph was founded in 1873 by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, Kan. It is Denver’s oldest private teaching hospital, with 450 beds and 1,268 physicians. Minkin said it is one of the last private room hospitals in the area and will continue to have private rooms in its new medical center.
The hospital has tried to position itself as a leading cardiology center and is the busiest childbirth center in Colorado, with more than 4,817 births a year. It also specializes in oncology and orthopedics. The new facility will have surgery and medical pavilions and specialty centers for women and children, emergencies and possibly trauma.
Minkin said the expansion is in response to the departure of other hospitals and the need to anticipate the area’s future medical needs. “It’s obvious that the remaining downtown hospitals are seeing an increase in utility as a result of hospitals departing,” he said. “Couple that with the baby boom impact and managed care continuing to grow. If we don’t anticipate those needs now we won’t be able to serve those needs when they arrive. Basically it’s time to get prepared.”
Not only is that good for Denver, but it sounds like good business sense, too.
