The health system moved hospital operations from its 52-bed legacy campus in Howell to the new 56-bed campus in Brighton, about 10 miles away, on April 19.
The Howell facility, which was built in 1956, had become outmoded and not conducive to today's technology and approaches to providing care, Trinity Health Livingston President John O'Malley said.Trinity Health Michigan added the $238 million replacement hospital to the campus of Trinity Health Medical Center Brighton. That medical center has 18 short-stay unit beds and eight operating rooms.
Philanthropists contributed $5.3 million toward the Brighton construction.
The new hospital has 56 acuity-adaptable beds, allowing medical teams to care for patients with a wide range of conditions and severity levels. The facility also has a nine-bed observation unit. O'Malley said the hospital's imaging technology is state of the art. There is new equipment for cardiac computed tomography scans, and the intensive care unit has been upgraded. Trinity Health Livingston has also boosted staffing from more than 780 to more than 840.
O'Malley said at the new site, the medical providers can treat patients with a higher level of acuity and with more complex conditions. For example, clinicians can perform colon and rectal procedures that they did not have the capability to perform at the old site. O'Malley expects more specialty procedures to be added.
The new facility is already ready for growth. O'Malley said the campus will soon add 24 beds to bring the count to 80.
The move began at 4 a.m. April 19, with the first of the 21 transfer patients departing the legacy site around 8 a.m. in one of about a dozen ambulances. The old facility closed at 1 p.m.
Trinity Health Livingston has a purchase agreement in place with Catholic Healthcare International, which is to take possession of the Howell campus Aug. 3. That purchaser is planning to transform the site into a replica of Padre Pio's Home for the Relief of Suffering in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.
