Now Piedmont Augusta, hospital gets to work updating more than its signs

The big letters on the top of the building now read Piedmont Augusta, but inside it is business as usual at University Hospital, officials said. What will change is a new infusion of $1 billion in capital that will modernize and update facilities and grow the Heart and Vascular Institute tower to treat more patients, they said.

The Piedmont Augusta name was unveiled with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday on the main campus as it officially merges with Piedmont Healthcare of Atlanta.

"It’s a super morning for physicians and employees," Piedmont Augusta CEO Jim Davis said. "And more than that I think it is a great day for the patients we serve here in Augusta as we finally get to the finish line of this deal with Piedmont."

From day one when Davis and Piedmont Healthcare CEO Kevin Brown began discussions, it was clear their cultures and missions were "almost a perfect match," Brown said.

"We were talking about quality, we were talking about efficiency, we were talking about safety," he said. The Augusta facilities, which includes ones in Summerville and McDuffie, now give Piedmont 22 hospitals across the state, Brown said. About 80% of Georgia's population lives within a mile of a Piedmont hospital, he said. And that is important because the healthcare system believes people should have convenient care "so the people stay right there for care," Brown said.

But Piedmont doesn't confine itself to hospital campuses when it goes into a community, said Dr. Mac Bowman, medical director of cardiovascular services for Piedmont Augusta.

"They’ve got a wonderful community outreach in all of the aspects of Atlanta, going to the barbershops, the beauty salons, going to where the people are," he said. "They go to where the problems are."

And they know how to celebrate those communities. Brown noted that Piedmont's facilities are located in the home of the World Series-winning Atlanta Braves, the National College Football Champion University of Georgia Bulldogs in Athens and now the "home of the world’s best golf course and I would say undeniably the finest sporting event in the world, The Masters (Tournament)," Brown said.

But other than the name on the front, there will be little difference in the care inside the facilities, said Hugh Hamilton, chairman of the board of trustees.

"You are really not going to see any dramatic change when you come here," he has been assuring people. "(Piedmont) culturally aligns with us. You will see the same people, receive the same quality of care" and possibly even new procedures.

The big change at first may even be invisible to visitors. With a guarantee of $125 million in capital per year for the first six years, work will begin on modernizing all of the utilities that the hospital depends upon, "boilers, generators, chillers, cooling towers" and other support systems, Davis said. Many of them are 50 years old and date from the time the original hospital building opened.

"We just need to be able to modernize those things," he said. Those must be upgraded before any expansions can happen, Davis said. The plan is to add three new floors to the Heart & Vascular tower to add much-needed capacity.

"We frequently run out of beds here on the main campus," he said.

That's in addition to other needed updates.

"We also have many patient rooms here that are tired and need to be renovated," Davis said. And sometimes updating begets more updating. The 10 West unit for inpatient cancer care was recently redone and "looks fabulous now," he said. "The problem is when you look at 10 North and 10 South, (they don't) look so great.

"You can’t paint just one room in your house," Hamilton observed.

"It’s just a beginning," Davis said.

The $990 million in capital plus $50 million to upgrade the IT systems is the hardware. But the affiliation also includes $2 million a year for 10 years to address community health care needs, such as supporting clinics and other initiatives.

"There’s no lack of not-for-profit organizations that impact the social determinants of health," Davis said. "We certainly have plenty of options to contribute to."

Piedmont Augusta will be conducting its Community Health Needs Assessment this year, which it does every three years and could help identify those needs.

The timing of the affiliation is important, Davis said. As it emerges from the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will have cost Piedmont Augusta about $140 million in lost revenue and added expenses, he said. The federal COVID relief to the hospital is about $50 million, so "$90 million upside down, just on COVID, which is an awful lot to make up," Davis said. That is far from the only financial loss looming. All indicators point to Medicare being insolvent by 2026, he said.

"Having been in the business a long time, I know that means provider cuts," Davis said. Add to that a 20% increase in the average hourly wage the hospital pays just over the last 18 months, an increase it cannot overcome by charging more the way other businesses can, he said. Only by becoming larger, through economies of scale, can health care organizations stay afloat, Davis said.

All of that "is going to cause tremendous problems in our industry and force more consolidations like you’re seeing us doing with Piedmont," he said.

Hospital acquisitions and mergers were actually down in 2021 to 49 announced transactions compared to 79 in 2020 and 92 in 2019, according to a report from Kaufman Hall, which was one of the consultants on the Piedmont/University merger. But hospitals, which faced almost unprecedented pressure from the pandemic, also saw "the imperatives of scale," the need to get bigger, which should lead to more alliances and deals in the future, the report noted.

New signs in the works

While the main hospital and Piedmont McDuffie signs were changed right away, others may take time, Davis said.

"Piedmont is surprised at how many signs we have, because they all have to change," he said. "We cover the whole community now – all of the Prompt Cares, all of the physician offices. All of those will change over time, not tomorrow. I don’t know what the sign budget is for us but it’s got to be high."

One immediate difference in becoming Piedmont Augusta is an end to the confusion with Augusta University and its AU Medical Center, "which is real," Hamilton said, and a real problem at times.

"We frequently have helicopters landing at the wrong place or ambulances going to the wrong place or visitors going to the wrong place," Davis said. "We’re going to move beyond that now."

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Piedmont Augusta, new name also signals upgrades and growth in size