Temple might then be the smallest city in the country with a stand-alone children’s hospital, they said.
Dr. Alfred Knight, Scott & White president and CEO, said the negotiations with the city’s other major medical facility could end within weeks, with a successful Scott & White bid taking several months to convert the general-purpose KDH into a KDH-branded children’s-only facility.
Scott & White entered into a nondisclosure agreement with KDH four weeks ago to look at what the future might hold if the two medical centers formed a partnership.
In that time, Knight said, Scott & White has been looking at what could be done with the KDH facility that would fulfill a need of the community and be able to sustain itself over time.
Ideas considered included a skilled nursing facility, rehabilitation center and psychiatric hospital.
“Very rapidly we came to the concept of a free-standing children’s hospital,” Knight said. “It feels like a children’s hospital … it’s small, it’s intimate and there are tremendous possibilities.”
Any announcement of an alliance would come from King’s Daughters Hospital, but Scott & White expects to be able to present the KDH board with a comprehensive offer within 10 days, Knight said.
If the offer is accepted, the transition into a children’s hospital could take up to a year, and KDH would remain open as an acute care hospital, he said.
Communities that have free-standing children’s hospitals see those facilities as being prize assets, said Dr. Robert Pryor, Scott & White chief medical officer and chief operating officer of Scott & White Healthcare System.
Not only can this area support and sustain a children’s hospital, Pryor said, in all likelihood the facility could achieve greatness rapidly.
Scott & White’s children’s facility within the hospital continues to expand, and the next step, Pryor said, is a freestanding hospital. This opportunity with KDH would move that step forward by a decade.
“From a community standpoint, from the children’s standpoint and from our academic and research standpoint, this idea kept bubbling to the top,” Pryor said. “Every time we looked at it, we thought our community is ready for this.”
Pediatrics is a core rotation in medical school, and a children’s hospital would benefit Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine in Temple by providing it with a thriving pediatrics department.
With academics and research playing a critical role in the partnership of Scott & White and A&M, a children’s hospital elevates the pediatric department to a different level, which encourages more research and education, Knight said.
Medical students who do rotations in a children’s hospital are exposed to the different specialties, and their interest in pursuing a career in children’s medicine increases, he said. Also, with a children’s hospital there is the possibility of expanding the pediatric residency program and eventually offer subspecialty fellowship training, Knight said.
A children’s hospital wouldn’t be just a Central Texas asset, but would benefit the state, Pryor said.
The characteristics of children’s hospitals are different from those of an adult acute-care facility, with the needs of the young patient being its core mission, he said.
Scott & White has been adding pediatric specialists all along and a children’s hospital would accelerate the additions, Pryor said.
A Level 1 pediatric trauma center would be possible with the KDH facility. Currently, 27 percent of patients seen in the emergency department at Scott & White are children.
Scott & White now has 35 to 40 pediatric inpatient beds with 12 intensive care beds and the King’s Daughters’ building could support between 60 and 80 beds, including an ICU, Pryor said.
There would be no problem keeping the hospital 50 percent occupied with little additional business, because the existing Scott & White Children’s Hospital is having to turn away pediatric patients because of lack of capacity, he said.
Regionally, a children’s hospital in Temple could serve the growing children’s population in Central Texas.
There is a lot of sentiment in the community and anything Scott & White might do would retain the King’s Daughters name, Knight said.
Rumors that have Scott & White coming in and shutting down the hospital are untrue, said Peter Brumleve, chief strategy and marketing officer at Scott & White.
That would not be anybody’s best interest - the patients or the employees, he said.
King’s Daughters Hospital has the financial resources to give it time to negotiate a proper transaction, John Cunningham chairman of King’s Daughters Hospital board of directors, said earlier in the week.
The board will look at all proposals before making a decision, he said.
Scott & White has been in discussion with King’s Daughters Clinic and opportunities for the physicians to continue in independent practice have been offered, but Knight said he doesn’t know if they will take advantage of the proposal.
“These physicians are our friends,” Pryor said. “These are very good physicians, and it’s in our best interest to work with them.”
