A $16 million long-term acute care hospital is taking shape off East 68th Street with an anticipated Nov. 3 opening planned.
When completed the 50,000-square-foot private Landmark Hospital of Savannah will offer 50 beds for patients needing special ICU or acute care, including ventilator management, systemic wounds, neurological and infectious disease care.
Christopher Sitton, project manager for Naples, Fla.-based DeAngelis Diamond Healthcare Group that is building the hospital, said it will accept referrals from Savannah’s two hospital groups, as well as other health-care referrals, but will not be an emergency facility and will refuse emergency patients.
When first opened it will be limited to five or six patients, but will reach full occupancy within 12 months, Sitton said. At that point, it will have a staff of about 200.
He said the 30 percent growth in health care needs over the past four-and-a-half years fueled the project.
“We’re meeting that demand as best we can,” he said.
Savannah will be the sixth such hospital opened by Landmark, joining Athens in Georgia and four others in Utah and Missouri, said Deborah Sabella, corporate director of hospital development and quality implementation in Cape Girardeau, Mo. The next one will be built in Naples, Fla., she said.
They are the vision of Dr. William K. Kapp III, founder and president of Landmark Holdings of Missouri,
and his effort to bring high-quality, long-term acute care services to areas of the country that have been under served or overlooked by providers.
The Savannah site, located between Memorial University Medical Center and Candler Hospital, will serve a population of 1.5 million, Sabella said.
“We take sick people,” Sabella said. “They have to have a lot of acute care needs.”
Average stay for patients is more than 25 days, a requirement to ensure Medicare funding, she said.
For the first six months after opening, the hospital must demonstrate it is taking the right patients, she said.
“There are a lot of challenges anytime you open one,” Sabella said.
At Candler Hospital in the St. Joseph’s/Candler Healthcare system, Select Specialty Hospital of Savannah has provided long-term acute care for 14 years, said CEO Jim Rogers.
The 40-bed independent group on Candler’s fourth floor is part of Select Medical Corp. headquartered in Mechanicsburg, Pa., which has 110 sites nationwide.
At Memorial University Medical Center, Mary Chatman, chief operating officer/chief nursing officer, said that institution sees Landmark “as a partner in the care model we envision.”
She said the changing healthcare landscape will require that hospitals “participate in the management of patients across the healthcare continuum,”
“Having long-term acute care services that we can partner with to care for these patients is important to the comprehensive care we provide to the citizens of Chatham and surrounding counties,” she said.