Sky Ridge Medical Center will add to the boom in south suburban medical growth with a 90-bed, $107 million expansion of its Lone Tree hospital.
The investment by Sky Ridge owner HealthONE, part of the Nashville for-profit hospital chain HCA, comes soon after HealthONE consolidated its control of metro Denver’s largest hospital group. HealthONE already managed Sky Ridge, Rose, Swedish, Presbyterian/St. Luke’s and other hospitals, and in October from the nonprofit Colorado Health Foundation.
The 90 new beds, near I-25 and Lincoln Avenue, will come with a new parking structure, a women’s health center and four new operating rooms for the Sky Ridge Spine & Total Joint Center.
Other medical powers are jockeying for patients in the relatively wealthy southern suburban areas. it would build the first hospital in Castle Rock, opening a 50-bed facility in two years and spending $128 million. The new Centura hospital will be about 11 miles south of Sky Ridge.
Kaiser, the health insurance plan that employs doctors and contracts for hospital beds, also opened a Castle Rock medical office last summer.
Hospital growth doesn’t always bring useful competition, noted University of Southern California health economist Glenn Melnick. Duplication of expensive MRIs and other equipment is not healthy. But if different chains add space in one area, such as south Denver, they may compete by lowering prices to employers and consumers, he said.
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com; Twitter: @Mboothdp
