Christ Hospital’s CEO said he’s not worried about nearby West Chester Hospital, Cincinnati Children’s Liberty Campus, Bethesda Butler Hospital or Atrium Medical Center.
“We welcome the competition,” Keating said.
“Butler County… is really one of the fastest growing counties in Ohio, so what we want to do is be able to anchor opportunities in those types of counties,” he said. “What we do is build out that medical center and, in time, be able to surround that with ambulatory centers where we can take our health care to the communities.”
Construction is set to begin shortly on The Christ Hospital’s new Liberty Twp. medical center, representing the system’s largest investment to date in Butler County.
The Mt. Auburn-based nonprofit network first announced plans in July to build the approximately 125,000-square-foot center at the growing Interstate 75 interchange with Ohio 129 and Liberty Way. Facilities will include a freestanding emergency room and helicopter landing pad, extended stay patient rooms and surgical, physical therapy, cardiology, radiology, urology and other services on about 17 acres off Cox Road, according to Christ Hospital.
Christ Hospital uses a “hub and spoke” model to run operations, building ambulatory and other outpatient sites in areas surrounding a main acute care center, Keating said. However, the new Liberty Twp. facility will be a “full medical center,” and not just an outlying spoke in the hospital’s operations, Keating said Thursday during a groundbreaking ceremony held at the construction site.
“We’re going to have a second hub and that second hub is going to be really Liberty Twp. and we’re going to build that and hopefully build additional ambulatory centers,” Keating said.
Once open, the hospital will join other new developments at the same highway exit, such as outdoor sporting goods retailer Cabela's Inc., which opened in August in West Chester Twp.; and the approximately $350 million Liberty Center retail, dining, residential and office complex in Liberty Twp., which is scheduled to open more than 1 million-square-feet off Liberty Way this month.
The final design has yet to be completed for the Liberty Twp. medical center, so there is no final figure for the investment cost, said Victor DiPilla, vice president and chief business development officer for the system. He expects the medical center to create a “few hundred” jobs.
“I think the community is continuing to grow and we will grow with the community as necessary,” DiPilla said. “We’ve designed it so that as we need to add services, if we need to add services, we can do that in a cost effective way.”
“We see this as a huge growth area.”
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