Brentwood, Tenn.-based TriStar Health is moving forward with a $17.3 million surgery center development after fierce opposition from competitors delayed the project for over a year, the Nashville Post reports.
Six details:
1. The Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency gave TriStar approval to break ground on TriStar Southern Hills Medical Center by June.
2. With three operating rooms, two procedure rooms and several physician offices, the surgery center will be built in Brentwood on a 14-acre property owned by Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare.
3. TriStar expects to wrap up construction by the end of 2020, three years later than it originally planned.
4. TriStar received a certificate of need for the project in 2015, but the approval was appealed by Nashville-based Saint Thomas Health and Franklin (Tenn.) Endoscopy Center, an affiliate of Addison, Texas-based United Surgical Partners International. The opposition forced TriStar to delay construction.
5. TriStar Southern Hills Medical Center and Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital, both in Nashville, later submitted separate CON applications to build freestanding emergency departments in Brentwood. The state denied both, leading opponents of TriStar's surgery center development to drop their appeal.
6. TriStar had to restart its internal approval process, obtain various approvals and seek permits from government agencies before moving ahead with the surgery center project, which will no longer include a freestanding emergency department.