Shared from the 5/25/2017 The Providence Journal eEdition

WOONSOCKET

$11.3M trauma center planned at Landmark

For-profit parent company says center would draw half its patients from Mass.

PROVIDENCE — Prime Healthcare Services Inc. plans to build an $11.3-million trauma center at Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket.

The for-profit California company that owns Landmark expects the new trauma center to draw roughly half of its patients from nearby Massachusetts, according to a proposal presented Tuesday to the state Health Services Council. The council recommended approval of the plan, which now goes before the state’s health director, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott.

In addition to the $11.3 million of capital costs, the trauma center projects operating costs of about $5.7 million. The project would be financed with equity from Prime, according to its application.

More than half of the trauma center’s payments are expected to come from Medicare, the government health program for seniors. Another 22 percent would come from Medicaid, the government insurance program for low-income people, with the remaining 17 percent from commercial payers.

About 30 percent of inpatient care at Landmark’s planned Level III trauma center is expected to be transferred to Rhode Island Hospital, the state’s only Level I trauma center, in the Lifespan network.

Level I is the highest designation a trauma center can receive. It means the entire hospital is committed to the care of trauma patients and offers the highest level of expert skill and precision available in trauma care.

The proposed trauma center is expected to create 35 jobs at Landmark and provide economic benefit to the state by adding $5.5 million from Massachusetts residents.

The plan presented to the state quoted from a 2013 report to the General Assembly which stated: “Improvements in hospital occupancy are the tactic most likely to have the greatest positive impact on the cost and stability of inpatient services in Rhode Island.’’

The trauma center also is expected to relieve some of the high use of hospital emergency rooms.

The trauma center is the last in a series of moves by Prime to expand its services here and boost revenues. Prime, which makes a business of buying distressed hospitals, has signed an agreement with Care New England, the state’s second-largest hospital system, to buy Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket.

Prime also has requested permission from the state to convert Landmark and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island in North Smithfield to nonprofit entities. If approved, Prime would no longer be required to pay property taxes to either community.

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