Horizons Fall 2016

Broward County’s first hospital to combine research, academics, and patient care will be built on Nova South- eastern University’s Fort Lauderdale/Davie Campus. An administrative law judge backed a preliminary decision by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administra- tion (AHCA) to approve HCA East Florida’s “certificate of need” application to relocate Plantation General Hosp- ital to the NSU campus. The judge’s decision included a recommendation for AHCA to issue the certificate of need. This is a major step toward achieving NSU’s Vision 2020, and a major accomplishment by HCA East Florida. The 200-bed community hospital will serve South Florida as a teaching and research facility integrated with NSU’s clinics, research centers, and clinical trials. This milestone addition, coupled with this year’s opening of NSU’s Center for Collaborative Research (see story on page 24), will provide students and faculty members with expanded opportunities for research and training. These will include osteopathic (D.O.) and allopathic (M.D.) medicine programs, pharmacy, dental, nursing, optom- etry, biomedical engineering, business, law, the health care sciences, and other fields of study. In alignment with the certificate of need, Plantation General Hospital will relocate 200 of its 264 licensed beds to the new hospital, with specialties including acute care, psychiatry, pediatrics, and neonatal. A stand-alone emer- gency department and space for outpatient surgery would remain in Plantation at the hospital’s current location. The first phase of this project was completed in 2015 when HCA East Florida built the first freestanding emergency department in Davie. The hospital will be built around the existing emergency department, located in the University Park Plaza on University Drive, just south of NSU’s Health Professions Division complex. HCA East Florida will privately own and operate the hospital. Consistent with its other facilities, no public funds will be utilized in the construction of the hospital. The $220-million, new hospital—which will be 6.7 miles away from the Plantation location, will have five stories with an attached parking garage. Construc- tion could begin during 2017, with the new facility possibly opening in 2018, according to George L. Hanbury II, Ph.D., NSU president and chief executive officer. The hospital will be part of an “academical village” that includes the university, a teaching hospital, and a research facility. It will be a “real destination” for students, patients, and even medical tourism, Hanbury said, point- ing out that one day it will also include a hotel, conference center, residential complex, and retail component. “I think it’s going to be transformational for Broward County,” he added. n 43 NSU HORIZONS AROUND NSU HOSPITAL’S RELOCATION TO NSU COMBINES RESEARCH, ACADEMICS