More than 16 months after its closing, St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii has settled on a plan for its former hospital in Liliha.
St. Francis will announce at a news conference today that it is investing $10 million to convert three floors of the Liliha campus into a 100-bed skilled-nursing facility, a first step to an envisioned long-term care campus for Hawaii’s growing number of seniors.
Eventually, St. Francis hopes to add independent living, assisted living, a memory care unit and many more services for seniors. What was an acute-care hospital will eventually become a health and wellness center that caters to Hawaii’s older adult population.
“As part of an extensive 20-year plan, St. Francis Healthcare System divested its two acute hospitals in January 2007, specifically to focus its attention and energies on home- and community-based care,” the Franciscan sisters said in a news release.
St. Francis sold its Liliha and Ewa hospitals for $68 million in 2007. The two campuses were returned to St. Francis last year after the new owner, Hawaii Medical Center, filed for bankruptcy and closed the hospitals.
In December, St. Francis sold its Ewa hospital to The Queen’s Health Systems, which plans to reopen the acute-care hospital next year.
“This (the Liliha skilled-nursing facility) is one of our first major projects since the hospitals have been returned to us,” said Jerry Correa, president and chief executive officer of St. Francis, in a news release. “We will continue … to be a valuable partner to Hawaii’s acute care hospitals.”
The Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation is donating $4 million to convert nearly 50,000 square feet of space in the former Sullivan hospital building into what will be named the Clarence T.C. Ching Skilled Nursing Facility.
Skilled-nursing facilities are for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies. Assisted living is for residents who can handle most daily activities on their own.
Ching was a longtime supporter of St. Francis, serving on the board of the former St. Francis Medical Center until his death in 1985. He was on a committee to raise funds to build the five-story Sullivan building, which opened in 1975 and included a skilled-nursing facility.
The Roman Catholic religious order said it will convert the third, fourth and fifth floors of the former hospital into mostly private rooms for skilled nursing.
Some of those beds will be designated for hospice care to expand the services of St. Francis Hospice at the Liliha campus.
In addition, St. Francis plans to broaden its tenant roster to include urgent care, an outpatient surgery center and adult day care.
The St. Francis Liliha campus already has several tenants that provide services for seniors and others, including The Cancer Center of Hawaii, Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii, Liberty Dialysis, Pharmacare and Hawaii Endoscopy Center. Y & M Radiology is scheduled to open there in July.
St. Francis says its plan to focus on services for the older adult population is in response to a growing need. One in 5 people in Hawaii will be 65 years or older by 2030, compared with 1 in 17 in 1970, according to Health Trends in Hawai‘i.
St. Francis provides hospice care in homes and long-term care facilities, as well as two inpatient facilities in Nuuanu and Ewa.
As part of the Liliha renovations, St. Francis plans infrastructure improvements and upgrades to common areas. It also will add physical therapy and skills-strengthening rooms and invest in electronic medical records systems. MGA Architecture has been selected as the project architect.
The public hospital system known as Hawaii Health Systems Corp. had been interested in operating a long-term care facility at St. Francis’ Liliha campus, though negotiations did not come to fruition.
Meanwhile, The Queen’s Health Systems has begun demolition of the West Oahu hospital to double the capacity of its emergency and operating departments, opening next spring. Queen’s is spending more than $70 million on renovations, new equipment and the acquisition.
With the sale of the Ewa hospital, St. Francis said it is “now ready to move forward to start a new exciting chapter at its Liliha campus.”
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NEW FOCUS
St. Francis will convert three floors of its former Liliha hospital into a skilled-nursing facility.
>> Cost: $10 million
>> Number of beds: 100
>> Opening: Summer 2014
>> Major funding: $4 million from Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation
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