UK scrapped plans for a new hospital 15 months ago. Here’s what it’s doing instead

UK HealthCare officials mentioned a planned community hospital near Hamburg wasn’t going to happen at a July 17 public meeting.

Since that meeting of the state’s Budget Review Subcommittee on Health and Family Services, which helps oversee legislative budget appropriations across the state, several questions have been floating around.

Where was it going to be built? How big was it going to be? What kind of services would it offer? Why hadn’t we heard about this before?

The reality is the vision of a full-blown hospital at the site was scrapped 15 months ago.

“We had planned a community hospital in Hamburg. That was perceived as us stepping outside of our swim lane,” said Mark Birdwhistell, UK HealthCare’s senior vice president for health and public policy.

When did UK HealthCare change Hamburg plans?

UK HealthCare bought 27 acres of land in 2022 with plans to build a healthcare campus, including a community hospital, at the intersection of interstates 64 and 75 in the Hamburg area east of downtown Lexington.

Less than a year later, that plan changed.

UK HealthCare underwent a “strategic refresh” in April 2023 , and scrapped the idea of a community hospital. The updated strategy came when newly appointed Co-Executive Vice Presidents for Health Affairs Eric Monday and Robert DiPaola examined what UK HealthCare needed to do to better serve the commonwealth.

“When we took fresh eyes to that strategy, what we heard is a number of our partners were concerned about us building a new hospital,” Monday said.

Instead of building a new hospital, UK chose to increase the capacity of Albert B. Chandler Hospital on UK’s main Lexington campus. That project is in the design phase and is expected to cost $3.3 billion. UK Board of Trustees approved the Chandler expansion in April 2023.

Back in Hamburg, UK bought more land next to that original plot in April 2023, with plans to build an outpatient medical office building. In total, the 41 acres at the interstate junction cost UK $39 million.

“We wanted to make sure we were investing our capital in the right place to serve Kentuckians,” said Rob Edwards, UK HealthCare chief strategy and growth officer.

“These are humongous investments. You don’t make these decisions slowly or without lots of stakeholders at the table. It’s not unusual for health systems to pivot in their thinking as you continue to focus on your mission.”

Smaller Kentucky hospitals that UK partners with felt like UK was overreaching by building a hospital instead of focusing on care for the state’s sickest patients, Birdwhistell said.

The pivot in strategy will expand advanced care, like solid organ transplants, which Monday called “the highest most complex procedures that can only be done in UK HealthCare in the commonwealth.”

Specifically, the expansion of the Chandler hospital will broaden UK’s capacity to accept transfer patients. Each year, close to 50% Chandler hospital discharges are transfers from other hospitals across the state.

In the past two years, UK has had to turn away 10,000 transfer requests. Increasing the number of beds in Chandler from 1,100 to 1,400 will help lessen the number of patients who need advanced care that UK has to turn away due to lack of space, officials say.

What will UK do in Hamburg?

Site prep for the land in Hamburg is projected to finish by the end of this year . The medical office building is set to open in 2027 or 2028, according to UK spokesperson Kristi Willett. The approval process might slow down the project, officials said.

UK HealthCare officials chose the Hamburg site to bring care closer to employees. Around 9% of UK employees live near Hamburg area of Lexington, Edwards said.

The building will be similar to the UK Turfland clinic, which opened in 2015. Turfland is a hub for specialty care, like sports medicine and reconstructive surgery, with some primary offerings, such as family medicine doctors.

There is no decision on what specialties will be offered in the Hamburg clinic. Monday said UK is working with its partner hospitals and gathering employee feedback to make sure the specialties slated for the clinic will best serve the patient population.

“We’re thinking about this as the first leg of the stool. The other parts that get built out will be over time,” Monday said. “We’ll look to plan additional buildings after we get started on the first.”