The Green Mountain Care Board rejected a request from the University of Vermont Medical Center to spend an additional $1.45 million on planning for a proposed new inpatient facility still under review by the regulatory board.
The board denied the request for additional planning money because the hospital wanted to proceed with “preconstruction services” that were supposed to begin after the final project was approved.
Al Gobeille, the board chair, declined to comment because the matter is still pending.
UVMMC wants to build a 180,000-square-foot facility that would include 128 single-occupancy rooms and is expected to cost $187.3 million to complete. The seven-story structure would be located on the west side of the hospital’s property in Burlington above the existing emergency department parking lot.
All major construction projects by health care providers must receive approval from the Green Mountain Care Board through a certificate of need process. The board requires that hospitals obtain certificate of need approvals as part of an effort to ensure a thoughtful and reasoned buildout of Vermont’s health care system.
UVMMC, the state’s largest hospital, says the project should get the green light because it won’t increase inpatient capacity. The hospital wants to close older, shared patient rooms and replace them with private patient rooms.
The project won’t increase the number of beds at Fletcher Allen, but will allow older patient rooms, most of which were built 25 to 60 years ago, to be closed. Only 81 of Fletcher Allen’s existing 237 medical/surgical beds are located in private rooms, the hospital said.
Existing semi-private inpatient rooms present “major challenges” for preventing hospital-acquired infections, providing privacy, accommodating diagnostic equipment and affording sufficient space for families and visitors, according to the hospital’s original application. Single-person rooms are now the standard for acute inpatient care, hospital officials say. They cite several examples, including a recent construction project at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.
The hospital received a “conceptual” certificate of need to begin planning activities for the project in August, and expected it would receive approval to begin construction in May, however the board is still reviewing its application.
Without the new planning funds, UVMMC officials said in filings with the board, the hospital would expend the $5.3 million already approved for planning, and would be forced to “cease all planning work” pending final approval. If that happens, UVMMC faces $1.4 million in additional costs and an additional three months would be added to the construction schedule. The original project timeline was 38 months.
UVMMC’s request to amend its conceptual certificate of need outlines preconstruction services and costs “scheduled to begin after the project CON was issued,” and that were originally categorized as part of the project’s construction phase, “to be completed only if UVMMC received a CON authorizing the project,” according to the ruling.
Burlington approved a zoning change in 2009 that will allow UVMMC to build taller buildings at the medical center campus, and last year the hospital reached an agreement with the University of Vermont that will allow the project to go forward, pending the board’s approval.
The hospital does not intend to appeal the decision, according to a spokesman who said in a statement that UVMMC “will respect the Green Mountain Care Board’s ruling and focus on getting a prompt and favorable decision on the merits of the project.”
A hearing on the application is scheduled for May 18 and 19, which will be followed by a 10-day public comment period. The board has up to 150 days from when the application was completed on April 24 for its review, according to the board’s health policy director.
The ruling can be found here.
