An expansion that will more than double the size of the intensive care unit capacity at Nexus Specialty Hospital in Shenandoah from six to 15 beds is expected to be complete by mid-November.

Nexus is a long-term, acute care hospital with 54 beds that caters to patients who require an extended hospitalization, said Julie Walton, director of marketing and sales.

“With an acute care hospital like St. Luke’s the goal is to bring a patient in for immediate care,” she said. “Once a diagnosis and a treatment plan has been determined, if additional care is needed, that’s when a facility like Nexus comes into the picture.”

Nexus deals with patients who have an array of medical complexities, ranging from acute respiratory failure to pneumonia to other respiratory conditions. The ICU expansion will help Nexus serve additional patients during a time when the local health care industry continues to expand with the addition of Houston Methodist Hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital.

“It’s been a need for quite some time—that tends to be where our bottleneck has been,” Nexus CEO Judith Clarke Butryn said. “There will also be a greater focus and a greater need to treat these more complicated patients. That’s what we’re here for and what we should be doing—treating these patients who are medically complex. We’ve got to be able to meet the needs of our community.”