UVM Medical Center Submits Plan to Purchase Fanny Allen Campus to GMCB
Purchase builds a strong foundation for long-term plan to address the needs of patients across the region
Colchester, Vt. – The University of Vermont Medical Center today submitted a certificate of need (CON) to the Green Mountain Care Board, seeking approval to purchase the Colchester-based Fanny Allen Campus from its current owners for $17.3 million.
The CON submission comes as Fanny Allen’s current owners, Covenant Health, a Catholic health care system that currently holds the property through Fanny Allen Holdings, say they will sell the 22-acre campus which UVM Medical Center currently leases. UVM Health Network and Medical Center leaders say securing the hospital’s Fanny Allen-based operations is critical to ensure continuity of care for thousands of patients who access clinical services located on the campus and to improving long-term financial stability for the region’s only tertiary care facility.
“UVM Medical Center’s purchase of The Fanny Allen Campus will make a lasting, positive impact on how patients across our region receive care, and our health system’s finances,” said Sunny Eappen, MD, UVM Health Network President and CEO. “Preserving and maintaining established clinical operations and facilities is both fiscally responsible and critical to our ongoing work addressing challenges to patients’ timely access to care.”
“The Town of Colchester is pleased that the UVM Medical Center intends to retain and continue to use the Fanny Allen property to provide medical services to the region,” said Pam Loranger, Colchester Selectboard Chair. “Maintaining the Fanny Allen property for medical services helps promote a healthy economy with a mix of commercial and employment activities in Colchester.”
The Fanny Allen campus is currently home to UVM Medical Center clinics and offices including surgical services and a suite of operating rooms, audiology, breast imaging, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, rehabilitation therapy, speech language pathology, pediatric hospitalist services, psychological services, radiology, urgent care, urology, pharmacy and laboratory services.
“The Fanny Allen is a critical piece of our plan to meet the health access needs of Vermonters over the next decade, and preserving uninterrupted access to the wide variety of services on the campus must be a top priority,” said Stephen Leffler, MD, UVM Medical Center President and Chief Operating Officer. “We refuse to gamble on that future, and so we must move now to secure this essential asset that serves the health and wellbeing of our patients.”
While purchasing the Fanny Allen campus is critical to UVM Medical Center’s plans to meet the future needs of patients throughout the region, it is just one piece of the hospital’s long-term strategy to address patient access challenges and prepare for the ongoing impacts of a rapidly-aging and growing regional population. Outpatient surgery at Fanny Allen – which houses five outpatient surgical suites – accounts for just 11% of the clinical space operated by UVMMC on the campus and is not capable of meeting current or future demand for surgical services.
“While purchasing the Fanny Allen Campus is critical to ensuring continued access to care, it does not solve all of our needs,” said Dr. Leffler. “It complements our long-term facilities plan, which recognizes the need for major investments in new construction, as well as renovations and updates to existing Medical Center facilities. Taking a broad approach to these issues is essential as we respond to the changing needs of a region that is both rapidly growing and aging.”
Earlier this year, the Medical Center announced it was seeking approval from the GMCB to construct a multispecialty outpatient surgery center near its Tilley Drive campus in South Burlington, at an estimated cost of about $130 million. That project took shape as Medical Center and Health Network leaders projected, based on current demand and demographic data showing rapid growth and aging in communities across the region, that the Medical Center would see its surgical capacity fall short of regional demand by nearly 4,800 cases – or about one year’s worth of surgeries at Fanny Allen – by 2030.
By purchasing the Fanny Allen Campus, UVM Medical Center expects to save at least $4-6 million over a 15-year financing period when compared to its current lease obligations.