The purpose of the new center will be to address “complex medical conditions, multiple chronic illnesses and quality-of-life issues,” the two entities said.
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“This isn’t just about treating our friends and neighbors when they are sick enough to be in the hospital,” Premier Health CEO Mary Boosalis said at a public announcement Monday morning. “It’s about being at their side throughout the course of their chronic and complex illness and ensuring that they can live life to the fullest with dignity and as much on their own terms as possible.”
The new center located at Miami Valley Hospital South will help patients with Alzheimer’s or dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, cancer and other serious chronic illnesses.
“There is nothing else like this new center in the entire country,” Kent Anderson, CEO of Ohio’s Hospice of Dayton, said. “Together we are creating a center where those with acute and chronic illnesses can receive centralized services. We have the unique ability to honor and serve these patients to preserve dignity, provide comfort and assure grace.”
Construction of the three-story, 36,000-square-foot building will be led by Beavercreek-based Synergy Building Systems.
The announcement came during a ceremony this morning also celebrating the final beam being raised for a $60 million addition at the 10-year-old campus, which is the southern location of Miami Valley Hospital, under Premier Health’s network.
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The hospital is adding about 170,000 square feet of new space and the expansion project at the 2400 Miami Valley Drive campus is expected to be completed late 2018.
The addition will mean a new spine and joint center with expanded sports medicine, sports performance and pain center services. There will be six operating rooms added, bringing the site’s total to 16, and the expansion will also include 20 additional inpatient beds.
Boosalis said she sometimes gets questioned about the need for all the new construction by Premier and other health care providers, but she said Premier’s construction is not adding so much as shifting care to the communities with growing populations and growing medical care needs. While Dayton’s population has not been growing, the southern suburbs have.
“So we’ve quietly taken down the beds at Miami Valley Hospital and Good Sam because that population is not growing, while there’s many good things happening in Dayton. There’s a lot of growth here. There’s a lot of growth in our southern market,” Boosalis said. “So our challenge, if you will, is to meet people where they need the care.”
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