PROVIDENCE – The state’s largest hospital is eyeing a massive renovation.
Rhode Island Hospital, operated by Brown University Health, is looking to build a 185,000-square-foot Diagnostic and Treatment Platform building in the middle of its campus.
The project is part of a master plan the hospital is continuing to finalize that would address issues found in the facilities, according to a Certificate of Need filed with the state’s Health Services Council.
In 2022, the hospital commissioned an assessment of its buildings, which showed that the “current state of the facilities does not accommodate nor support the delivery of medicine and superior patient experience in a contemporary manner.”
More specifically, several structures were in poor physical condition and they don’t all connect in a building. The hospital has fixed issues that were in need of immediate repair and is now beginning to address its long term infrastructure and future needs of the community.
“Some spaces are simply not suitable for patient care,” the hospital said in its filing. “It is past time to consider a comprehensive approach to the campus instead of continuing to make do and waste money to merely to keep operational outdated facilities.”
The Certificate of Need represents the first step to preparing the hospital’s campus for future development and includes two projects. The first is relocating utility lines and the second involves renovating the Main Building to relocate and consolidate several imaging technologies located in the George/Meehan Building. The Post Anesthesia Care Unit would also be relocated closer to a new Level 3 Imaging room that will house a new Vascular and Interventional Radiology suite.
The hospital found that most of the George/Meehan Building is "beyond its useful life for modern health care, is a drain of hospital resources and impedes the ability to efficiently layout the hospital in a manner that would greatly improve patient care." So, removing the George/Meehan Building, along with several others, will provide the space needed to build a new and more modern diagnostic and treatment building.
Both of these projects are expected to have a minimal effect on patient care and the hospital doesn’t anticipate any large reduction in the level of services provided during construction. They are expected to cost about $34 million to complete. Brown Health is funding the project through an existing bond as well as its own income. The health system is including the project in its annual operating budget and expects to report a positive cash flow in fiscal year 2025.
The Health Services Council is scheduled to consider Brown Health’s proposal for these projects during a meeting Tuesday at 2 p.m. The meeting will take place in the John P. Fulton, Ph.D., Department of Operations Center in the lower level of the R.I. Department of Health Building.
Brown Health says it will likely file more Certificate of Needs in the next two years for future phases of the project, with the final being a proposal for the Diagnostic and Treatment Platform Building. A spokesperson for Brown Health did not immediately respond to PBN’s request for comment.
Katie Castellani is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Castellani@PBN.com.