LSU outlines plans for Perkins Road site
By Marsha shuler
Capitol news bureau
October 29, 2012
LSU is planning for an expanded medical presence at its 20-acre Perkins Road site in south Baton Rouge, according to LSU System documents.
Besides becoming home to a mini-hospital late next year, LSU’s capital outlay request includes proposed construction of a medical office building as well as money to develop a master plan for future site development.
The medical building would become home to outpatient clinics currently operated at the LSU Earl K. Long Medical Center’s north Baton Rouge campus on Airline Highway.
The hospital is scheduled to close in late 2013 as LSU moves its inpatient care and medical education programs to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, called OLOL, located off Essen Lane in south Baton Rouge.
Keeping the clinic operations with LSU is one of the terms of the public-private partnership agreement reached between the state and OLOL, according to representatives of both.
“In order for the LSU-OLOL Public Partnership to succeed, LSU Health Baton Rouge will need to grow the ambulatory care model, including a relocation to the LSU SF (Surgical Facility) on Perkins and the development of that site over the next decade,” documents laying out the LSU plan state.
“...A Master Facility plan can be developed for the highest and best use of limited, precious capital, in a manner that supports the emerging needs of the community and the foundation of the LSU-OLOL Public Private Partnership.”
State health chief Bruce Greenstein said the outpatient surgical center located at 9032 Perkins Road, near Bluebonnet Boulevard, would become home to a 15-bed LSU hospital once the Earl K. Long facility on Airline Highway closes. Ten of those 15 beds will be for the general population, and five beds will be set aside to treat inmates in prisons.
With the close of the Earl K. Long facility, LSU still must keep a hospital of at least 10 beds operating in order to continue to receive funding for the outpatient clinics that serve the Baton Rouge area’s poor and uninsured, Greenstein said.
The Perkins Road site would also solve problems involving prisoner care, which currently is delivered at the Earl K. Long facility. OLOL did not want to take on the task of treating prisoners.
LSU bought the Perkins Road site in 2007 for $20 million as it sought places to perform outpatient surgeries. Renovations are being done to the surgical facility to convert it to in-patient hospital use.
The medical office building contemplated on the Perkins Road site would provide services for orthopedic, surgery, wound and vascular, ear nose and throat, opthalmology, dermatology and dental care. The building’s cost estimate is $7.98 million, according to the documents.
The building would provide a centralized location for all the surgical and surgical subspecialty clinics “so they can cross train and cross-serve and be in close proximity to performing surgeries and endoscopy,” said Marvin McGraw, spokesman for LSU’s Health Care Services Division.
“This will help us in achieving the mix of patients we need as well as will allow the doctors to practice immediately adjacent to where they will do their surgeries,” he said.
The project is just a request today with no funding stream allocated to it, McGraw said.
The LSU Board of Supervisors signed off Friday on the medical office project as well as four others as “priorities” for state funding in the budget year that begins July 1.
The LSU-OLOL deal also calls for LSU to continue a presence in north Baton Rouge. A medical clinic has been constructed a few blocks from the Earl K. Long hospital on Airline Highway.
An urgent care center also is under construction, which is required under the agreement with OLOL. LSU construction plans include a 7,500-square-foot addition as well as renovations to the north Baton Rouge clinic at a cost of $3.6 million. The addition would house a radiology suite, which would include an MRI and other high-tech scanners, plus a retail and chemotherapy pharmacy.
The project also includes parking lot repairs, replacing the existing generator with one sized to backup the entire facility with a fuel tank capable of providing 120 hours of continuous operation.
Renovations already have been completed to part of the old K-mart building located on the site that is becoming home to LSU’s Health Care Services Division, which operates LSU’s seven south Louisiana hospitals.
The 200-plus member staff is moving from two Baton Rouge locations: one off Essen Lane and the other on the LSU main campus. Some have moved and others are scheduled to follow Nov. 4.
Next up is renovation of the Bingo hall located on the property to provide for the relocation of departments from the Earl K. Long facility once it closes.
The renovation will lead to creation of a centralized Health Information Technology Center that includes medical records, quality assurance and infection control.
Additional parking to accommodate the influx of staff is also planned at a cost of $1.4 million.