Physician-owned hospital breaks ground in Austin

Construction started in early August, and the hospital group expects to open the facility by December 2014. The hospital is located on 8.5 acres of land on the south side of SH 45 North between MoPac and I-35. Wyatt said the location is convenient for both future patients and the physicians.

Derrick Evers, managing partner with FPMC's developer, the Neal Richards Group, said working with city officials and physicians has made for an easy project so far.

"The continued spirit of entrepreneurship and the way physicians have come together so rapidly and with such veracity has been great to watch," Evers said.

The Austin facility will be a four-story building measuring 145,000 square feet in size. It will have 10 operating rooms, two endoscopy suites for smaller procedures such as colonoscopies and an intensive-care unit with six beds as well as 45 patient rooms, many of them family suites.

Wyatt said a group of more than 60 physicians approached FPMC about opening an Austin location. Those physicians will be the hospital's owners and elected their board the week of July 29. Wyatt said FPMC will be the largest physician-owned hospital in the Austin area.

"It's the difference between owning a house and renting," he said. "[The doctors] are able to control what they want."

The doctors were involved in all decisions of planning the new facility, including deciding the layout and flow of the hospital as well as the finishes.

"It's designed as an environment to comfort people," Wyatt said. "Patients [will] have lower stress levels and shorter stays."

Physicians will also work with a board of management to decide how the medical park is run.

"Because physicians know how to take care of patients [and] they know the economic impact, they're best equipped to make those decisions," FPMC founder David Genecov said. "Out bottom line is the care of the patient."

Patients' rooms will be larger with standard hospital amenities but with extra-large bathrooms. The family suites will have an attached room that resembles a hotel suite with a microwave, refrigerator and pullout bed.

"This way a family cannot be disturbed when someone comes in at 2 in the morning," Wyatt said.

FPMC will also seek a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design designation just as it did for its other facilities, Wyatt said. The hospital will be built to use about 40 percent less water than other hospitals, will have a roof that allows the facility to recycle rainwater and will use low-energy lighting.

"The goal is how to make the hospital environmentally sensitive without compromising the patient experience," Wyatt said.

Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell also highlighted the advantages the $300 million medical facility and surrounding mixed use development area will bring to the city, including generating more than 300 jobs.

"We're excited to have a new facility to add to our complex of health care," Leffingwell said. "It's going to have a big economic benefit to our resident base."