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Architect’s rendering of entrance to new Centennial Cancer Center.

Construction, expansion, renovation — these words describe recent activity at some of Nashville’s busiest hospitals.

In October, Centennial Medical Center, part of the TriStar Family of Hospitals, announced a $143 million campus expansion plan and filed a Certificate of Need with the Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency (HSDA) to renovate and expand patient care and support areas, add major medical equipment and add 51 licensed beds to the 614-bed tertiary facility at its main campus. The beds would be transferred from TriStar’s Skyline Madison campus.

Centennial’s CEO Tom Herron said that Centennial has been experiencing significant capacity challenges, due in large part to the success of its heart and cancer programs and the growing needs of the area’s aging population.

Major components of the Centennial project include the following:

1) Integration of all cardiac services, including inpatient nursing units, surgical/procedural areas that will incorporate outpatient diagnostics and new cutting-edge cardiac technologies into a dedicated heart and vascular center. Centennial recently purchased a $3 million state-of-the-art dual source CT scanner that can produce images of the heart without the administration of heart-slowing medication.

2) A dedicated cancer center that will integrate inpatient nursing units, radiation oncology, operating rooms, a comprehensive cancer imaging center, outpatient services and laboratory services. There will also be specific units for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Hematological Malignancy, Medical Oncology and Surgical Oncology. Additionally, the cancer center will have expanded family support services and administrative offices.

Architects for the project are Earl Swenson Associates, Inc., of Nashville, a firm that has designed over 8,500 projects throughout the United States and abroad. If approved by HSDA, Herron expects the project to be completed in 2010.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has recently announced proposals for several significant building and renovation projects.

The Vanderbilt University Board of Trust took the first steps toward expansion of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt by approving expenditure of $5.4 million in planning fees for a proposed addition of an eight story, 340,000-square-foot addition to the hospital.

Plans for the addition would include moving obstetrical services from Vanderbilt University Hospital to the Children’s Hospital, adding 72-96 pediatric beds, 36 neonatal intensive care beds, 36 obstetrical beds, a newborn nursery, 16 to 20 labor and delivery rooms and five to ten operating rooms.

The total projected cost of the expansion is approximately $203 million, with groundbreaking scheduled in 2009 and completion planned for 2012.

Harry R. Jacobson, MD, vice chancellor for Health Affairs for Vanderbilt, said, “Growth is the sign of a dynamic medical center, and this expansion is the logical next step in the success story that is the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital.”

The Carell facility has, since its opening in 2004, seen increases in discharges of 37 percent, patient days of 31 percent, operative procedures of 53 percent, emergency department visits of 31 percent and clinic visits of 45 percent.

The continued high occupancy rates of the hospital, as well as interest in growing programs such as pediatric cardiac surgery, oncology and liver transplantation, have made expansion necessary.

The expanded Children’s Hospital building would connect to the existing hospital to the east in the area currently occupied by the Dayani Center for Health and Wellness.

The Dayani Center will relocate to One Hundred Oaks, where Vanderbilt will also move all outpatient services and 16 clinical programs, as well as the VMG Business Office and the Patient Accounting facility, to form Vanderbilt Health at One Hundred Oaks (see sidebar).

Also under way on the VUMC campus is a significant expansion of the Henry-Joyce Cancer Clinic of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Tennessee.

The construction, begun this spring, is designed to improve the patient experience by doubling the square footage for cancer care on the first and second floors of the clinic and doubling the number of chemotherapy chairs. The renovation, the cancer center’s first in ten years, will increase by 75 percent the number of exam, consultation and procedure rooms for patients, as well as provide a larger and better-located Patient & Family Resource Center and more spacious and comfortable seating for patients and visitors.

The extensive renovation will also provide more space for research, including the ability to offer more clinical trials of promising new treatments to translate into laboratory-based advances to patients.

Jennifer Pientenpol, PhD, Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and interim director of VICC, said, “The creation of dedicated space for delivery of Phase I clinical trials will speed the development of effective new therapies.”

The project, scheduled to be completed in 2008, will cost $16.5 million to $20 million.



December 2007

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