Construction of a replacement hospital for Angel Medical Center – promised when HCA acquired Mission Health but met with skepticism by some in the community – is now set to get underway with a groundbreaking ceremony in April.
Groundbreaking is set for Friday, April 30 at the construction site at One Center Court. Angel CEO Karen Gorby and other hospital officials are expected to speak.
“We would love to have invited the public, however, because of the governor’s mandate limiting attendance to 50 people, we will be unable to do so,” said Mission Health spokeswoman Nancy Lindell.
HCA acquired property for the replacement hospital at One Center Court in November 2019. Construction was expected to begin in late 2020 with opening of the $68 million hospital anticipated in 2022.
Franklin Town Council voted unanimously to approve the special use permit for the hospital in September 2019.
Initial plans said the facility would consist of 30 patient rooms, 16 emergency rooms, five intensive care rooms, three operating rooms and two trauma rooms. It would also have 139 parking spaces, a cafeteria, an MRI lab, x-ray and endoscopic capabilities, and a helipad for MAMA II, the medical emergency helicopter.
The new facility is designed to be more efficient and patient-friendly.
“In the very beginning, we looked at all the data linked to what the projections would be five years out,” Gorby said previously. “We saw that the area of growth was in [people] 65 and older.”
With that senior population in mind, the new hospital is designed to enhance mobility with an emphasis on easy access. The current hospital can be difficult to navigate.
Current patient rooms are about 60 percent of the size they should be, Gorby said.