Penrose-St. Francis Health Services is constructing a $150 million spine and orthopedic hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
$150 Million Spine and Orthopedic Hospital Is Coming to Colorado
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The new hospital will be built on the 57.81-acre parcel the health system purchased for $30 million in 2019. It is located at the intersection of Interstate 25 and InterQuest Parkway and will be the health system’s third hospital campus.
Construction plans include drainage canals, utilities, and road regulating ponds which will begin before construction of the 72-bed hospital. It is anticipated that construction will begin in early 2021. Additional plans for the site include a medical hospital building and surgery center.
Penrose-St. Francis Health Services President and CEO Brian Erling, M.D., M.B.A., told OTW, “At Centura Health, we grow and evolve alongside the communities we serve and make every decision with the health and wellness of our patients, caregivers and communities at heart. For this facility, our third hospital in Colorado Springs, we evaluated multiple options with two goals: to expand service offerings to the fastest growing portion of our community, and to create additional surgical capacity in the operating rooms at our regional tertiary referral center. This Spine and Orthopedic hospital will accomplish both goals.”
Dr. Erling continued, “The most exciting part of this project is the opportunity to partner with our physician leaders and experts to design a specialty hospital from the ground up that anticipates and meets the needs of our caregivers, providers, patients and community. Additionally, integrating cutting-edge technology, consumer and provider-facing digital solutions is very exciting.”
Dr. Erling explained how COVID-19 affected the project. “Nationwide, hospitals and health systems have had to tighten their belts to weather the financial challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For that reason, we delayed the project approximately one year, but are now moving forward quickly and plan to break ground this month. Once open, we will have a significant increase in medical bed capacity at our other two hospitals in the region, in the event that our communities experience additional COVID surges in the years to come.”
The hospital will focus on orthopedic and spinal care and will include 10 operating rooms. It will serve Colorado Springs and the northern El Paso County area. Its location and size are ideal for the growing Colorado Springs community which has been ranked among the top 30 fastest-growing large cities in the United States. The InterQuest area is also welcoming retail, entertainment, and housing developments, with construction continuing despite COVID-19.
Penrose-St. Francis Health Services is a full-service, 522-bed acute care facility. It includes Penrose Hospital and St. Francis Medical Center. Penrose-St. Francis Health Services is part of Centura Health, the largest hospital and health care network in Colorado and western Kansas.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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