From Our Sister Paper, NashvillePost.com
VUMC, Williamson Medical opposition helps scuttle Saint Thomas, TriStar proposals Published March 25, 2015 by Emily Kubis The Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency voted Wednesday to deny separate TriStar Southern Hills Hospital and Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital certificate-of-need applications to build freestanding emergency departments in Brentwood.In a simultaneous review by the agency, the two health systems debated the merits of their respective plans to build an eight-room freestanding ED on Old Hickory Boulevard near Interstate 65.
Both hospitals reported heavy utilization of the existing emergency rooms. Southern Hills CEO Tom Ozburn said ER use at the hospital has increased by 32 percent in the last five years while Saint Thomas Midtown Chief of Emergency Medicine Dr. Robert Hutton said utilization there has been at or above 93 percent since 2011.
However, representatives from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Williamson Medical Center were not convinced — and ultimately, neither was the HSDA — saying that need was not demonstrated and claiming the projects would adversely affect existing hospitals. Dan Elrod, a Butler Snow attorney advocating for VUMC, argued that both projects were attempts to access affluent Brentwood and Williamson County and not an effort to better serve existing patient bases.
Williamson Medical representative Bill West argued that the two projects were unneeded since the Franklin hospital is expanding its capacity to meet growing demand in the county. Anticipated population growth in southern Davidson County, West argued, could be absorbed though the existing Southern Hills site.
Further, the two systems opposed each other, with TriStar spokesman Jerry Taylor alleging that Saint Thomas' capacity needs are overblown and that trends there have in fact been negative for the last two years.
Conversely, Saint Thomas representative Warren Gooch called TriStar's project cost — $11.3 million compared to Saint Thomas' $6.75 million — excessive and that the HCA subsidiary's plans represented a market share grab.
"We think this is the latest chapter in TriStar's strategy to try and financially harm Saint Thomas Health," Gooch said.