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Connerton Hospital Opens

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By GEOFF FOX

gfox@tampatrib.com

Published: March 19, 2009

LAND O' LAKES - Cathy Edmisten was so happy she danced a jig near a nurses station.

University Community Health's Long Term Acute Care Hospital at Connerton had officially opened and Edmisten touted its amenities with an enthusiasm Vanna White would struggle to emulate.

"We can do just about anything here," she said at the entrance of a private hospital room. Patients "won't have to move for anything. We have a portable X-ray machine, so we can do that right in the room. We can even do bedside procedures like a bronchoscopy. That's where a scope with a small camera can go down into the lungs."

The new hospital is on 38 acres in the Connerton community off U.S. 41, about nine miles north of State Road 54. Hospital officials have said the location will make it convenient for hospitals in west Pasco County and elsewhere to transfer patients from their intensive-care suites to a long-term care facility.

The 50-bed hospital, featuring an operating room, laboratory, cafeteria, meditation room (where family members can relax quietly), pharmacy services, a critical-care unit, radiology department, gift shop and courtyard, welcomed its first patient this week.

Its private rooms have full bathrooms, large windows, mounted televisions and chairs that fold out into beds. The hospital has about 30 employees but could have 80 by September.

Pasco County commissioners and other local leaders are scheduled to tour the hospital today.

"It's all private care," hospital spokesman Will Darnall said. "It's built and designed for in-patients. At UCH in Tampa, the average length of stay is four to five nights. The patients here are going to be in for 25 nights or longer.

"But it's not a nursing home. The patients have good diagnoses for getting back home. In this setting, the nurse-to-patient ratio is just outstanding."

The hospital won a state permit for the facility in 2006. Construction began in February 2008 and was completed in December. The land and 48,000-square-foot facility, including medical equipment, cost about $21 million.

Some of the land has been set aside for possible development, said Debi Martoccio, chief executive officer of the facility.

"One of the most important things is that we've hired a staff with the right attitude," she said. "We want the patient and family to come first, but we want our employees to have input into the environment. We've built what I call my dream team. The beauty of opening a new hospital is being able to do it right from the beginning."

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613.

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