There’s no doubt who owns Akron General Health System.
Akron General, now owned by the Cleveland Clinic, displayed its new logo during a groundbreaking Friday morning for a new, larger, $43 million emergency department.
The Cleveland Clinic name dominates Akron General’s in the new logo. It’s in larger letters and sits atop Akron General.
Cleveland Clinic officials said Akron General’s new logo is part of a systemwide branding revamp, and all of its regional hospitals will eventually have similar logos.
Akron General’s new logo is just the beginning of changes in store, courtesy of the Cleveland health care giant’s infusion of cash.
“This new emergency department would not have happened if it weren’t for our relationship with the Cleveland Clinic,” Akron General Health System President and Chief Executive Dr. Thomas “Tim” Stover told the crowd.
The new ER, scheduled to open in fall 2017, will replace one built in the 1960s.
The ceremony featured Akron General and Cleveland Clinic leaders using shiny shovels to turn over dirt that had been placed in bins. The ceremony was at the site of the planned facility, across from the existing emergency department on Akron General Avenue.
“It’s no surprise that the first thing that we wanted to do with the money from the Cleveland Clinic is to build a new emergency department,” Stover said, referring to Akron General’s long history of providing training for emergency room residents and its status as a Level-I trauma center, meaning it can care for the most complex trauma cases.
In an agreement struck last year, the Cleveland Clinic agreed to invest $100 million in Akron General as minority owner. The deal allowed the Cleveland Clinic to take over ownership of Akron General, a much smaller health system, after a year.
Additionally, the Cleveland Clinic has pledged to make at least $29.8 million in capital improvements to Akron General Health System in the first year of ownership and similar amounts annually for the next four years. These investments are on top of the initial $100 million.
In recent years, Akron General hasn’t been able to spend as much as needed on upgrading equipment and facilities because of financial challenges, Stover had said earlier.
Celebrating change
Friday’s event also was about celebrating the new ownership of the 101-year-old Akron General.
Cleveland Clinic Chief Executive Dr. Toby Cosgrove told those gathered Friday that the Akron-based health system becoming a part of the “Cleveland Clinic family” is a “significant event in the history of Ohio health care,” allowing patients to benefit from a wider range of medical services offered through the Cleveland Clinic network.
Emergency departments, he said, “are a portal to the full range of patient services available through the main campus and its regional health systems, which now include Akron General.”
The groundbreaking for the downtown facility comes after both Akron General and its cross-town rival Summa Health System have expanded emergency services to the suburbs, both building a facility in Green. Akron General also has satellite ERs in Bath Township and Stow.
Summa Health System struck its own $250 million deal in 2013 giving Cincinnati-based HealthSpan Partners — an auxiliary of Mercy Health, formerly Catholic Health Partners — a 30 percent ownership stake in Summa.
Plans for Akron General’s new ER also come after Summa Akron City Hospital replaced its dated downtown ER with a larger facility that opened in 2012.
More space, services
Emergency departments serve as the front door for many hospitals.
Nationwide, the number of emergency department visits reached a record high of 136.3 million in 2011, according to estimates released last year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ER use by uninsured patients and an increased need for medical services by an aging population are among the factors contributing to the trend.
Akron General’s emergency department, last renovated in 2002, will see about 56,000 patients this year, nearly twice the 30,000 patients it was designed to handle.
The planned roughly 60,000-square-foot facility will be designed for 65,000 to 75,000 patients on a yearly basis. Hasenstab Architects of Akron is the project architect.
The facility will have 58 treatment areas for patients, up from the current 37, as well as a separate urgent care area.
Hospital officials recognize, Stover said, “not everybody that comes to an emergency room needs emergency-room level care.”
The new department will include what hospital officials call “high acuity” trauma rooms for patients with serious injuries as well as a designated unit for Akron General’s PATH (Providing Access to Healing) program, in which specially trained registered nurses conduct medical examinations with sexual assault and domestic violence victims.
It also will have an expanded behavioral health unit, as well as its own imaging department, including a CT scanner, to make the best use of caregivers, Stover said.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.