ASCENSION HEALTH
The Seton Healthcare Family of Austin, Texas, plans to build a replacement campus for its University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin by 2017. The system will invest $245 million and raise an additional $50 million in philanthropy to build the teaching hospital.
The construction is part of a larger strategy by a newly formed partnership called the Community Care Collaborative to strengthen Austin's health care safety net. Under the collaborative, Seton is working with Austin's Central Health, a state of Texas division that coordinates health care services in Travis County, to carry out a plan approved by voters in fall 2012: A property tax increase will fund charity care services to be provided by medical residents at Brackenridge, clinicians at other Seton facilities and physicians teaching at the University of Texas Austin Dell Medical School, which is in the early, formative stage of development.
The voters' vision was for Austin to have a new medical school and teaching hospital and to "create an integrated delivery system for health care," according to Patricia Young Brown, president and chief executive of Central Health.
Seton will own and operate the new Brackenridge on land leased from Central Health. The new teaching hospital will serve as the primary training facility for the Dell Medical School.
Seton administrators said it is necessary to replace the 40-year-old Brackenridge because that building is outdated and is not conducive to the type of cooperation that will be happening under the Community Care Collaborative. This includes more extensive rounding and group discussions involving Dell Medical School and Brackenridge clinicians.
Seton plans to begin construction on the new Brackenridge next year.
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