By Mary Meaux

The Orange Leader

 

Christus Southeast Texas Health System is looking to create the area’s first micro-hospital.

Christus recently acquired a 6.2 acre lot southwest of the new Christus Outpatient Center under construction on Ninth Avenue and FM 365 to develop the hospital.

“A micro-hospital operates 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, meets all federal and sate licensing and regulatory requirements and offers a condensed number of inpatient beds for observation and short stays,” Ryan Miller, Christus Southeast Texas Health System president of ambulatory services, said. “New health care models are moving away from traditional large inpatient hospitals — options for smaller, inpatient units that offer the same advanced services placed in the center of communities who need it most.”

Gone are the days of the 400-bed hospital. Advances in care and technology have pushed healthcare to move faster while offering the same services.

Miller said that in today’s age patients are staying in hospitals for shorter periods of time. Childbirth is one example, when new mothers would stay upwards of a week at the hospital, but not anymore.

Construction and plans for the micro-hospital are not yet finalized.

“The micro-hospital can take years to cultivate, and we are in the earliest stages of development,” he said. “Acquiring the land is the first phase of the process, but one of the most significant.”

The micro-hospital will compliment the care to be provided by the outpatient center, slated to open in April.

In 2015, Christus announced plans to change direction to how health care is delivered to its nine-counties region, emphasizing a new patient-centered model to provide access to care beyond the traditional setting or through an emergency room.

Miller said there are other plans in the works so that by 2018, access points will grow from an existing 27 to more than 40 locations region-wide, adding access to urgent care centers, outpatient clinics, primary care practices and state-of-the-art specialty care.

Some of the plans include:

• Transformation of Christus Southeast Texas St. Mary to a short-stay surgical hospital.
• Opening a wound care clinic at the St. Mary location.
• Expansion of a third Beaumont Bone and Joint Institute location in Port Arthur.
• Expansion and upgrades to Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth NICU to include a new outpatient lactation clinic, cardiac cauterization lab and development of the excellence in joint replacement lab.