The health care industry is booming in northeastern Hays County a year after Seton Medical Center Hays opened in Kyle. (Photo by David White)
The health care industry is booming in northeastern Hays County a year after Seton Medical Center Hays opened in Kyle. (Above) The hospital, under construction in April last year, as seen from the air. (File photo)
by JEN BIUNDO
Just a little more than a year ago, as Seton Medical Center Hays prepared to open the doors of its new hospital, it was easy to count the number of full-time doctors practicing medicine in the city of Kyle: three.
Nowadays, the city is home to 76 physicians, many of them affiliated with the gleaming $144 million hospital complex that rises up out of former ranchland just east of IH-35 at Kyle Parkway.
Oct. 1 will mark one year of operation for Seton Hays, and the hospital is celebrating with a community health fair this Saturday, Sept. 18 from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
The new hospital is one of the most visible signs of the region’s explosive growth in recent years. Kyle’s population skyrocketed from about 5,000 in the 2000 census to nearly 30,000 today. Commercial services, largely clustered around the recently-built intersection of Kyle Parkway and IH-35, are springing up to cater to those new residents.
Local realtor John Sanford said Seton has pushed the growth of related medical businesses in the Buda-Kyle area, such as rehabilitation and speech therapy.
“A lot of our smaller commercial spaces are getting leased out,” Sanford said. “The impact’s mainly been on medical, but I think it opens up our residential development too. Some people want to live within a certain number of miles from a hospital.”
In 2008, 64 percent of Hays County residents went outside of the county to meet their medical needs, said Seton Hays Chief Operating Officer Herb Dyer. In the first three months after Seton Hays opened its doors, that number had dropped to 52 percent, Dyer said.
From Oct. 1 – Aug. 31, the hospital saw more than 33,000 patient visits, including 20,975 visits in the emergency department.
“The ED has probably been one of the more telling stories,” Dyer said. “When we first opened we had projected that we’d probably see about 900 or so visits per month. We saw literally 2,100 visits in the first month. We found out very quickly that the pent-up demand was a lot higher than projected.”
The hospital consists of a main floor and a five-story tower with 27,000-square-feet per floor. Seton Hays opened with 112 beds, expandable to about 300 beds. Some of that expansion has already started.
Seton opened the fourth floor unit about nine months earlier than expected, on April 1. Meanwhile, the fifth floor is scheduled to open in 2014 or 2015 as a med-surge unit, depending on demand.
“We’re expecting to continue that growth and respond to the community at large,” Dyer said. “If demands call for more staff and more services, we’ll do that.”
However, the maternity ward actually experiences a lower than expected number of deliveries. Early projections suggested the hospital would have 600 deliveries in the first year, but 11 months in, the hospital has seen just 366. Hospital officials say a sluggish economy may bear some blame for lower birth rates.
Seton may eventually be able to accommodate a wider range of trauma patients as well. The hospital is unofficially operating as a level IV trauma center, and hopes to receive certification this spring. At that point, they would immediately move to seek certification as a level III facility, which would entail having a trauma surgeon on staff.
Seton’s Williamson County Hospital is currently pursuing designation as a Level II trauma facility, and Seton Hays may follow suit in the next two to three years, depending on community demand, Dyer said. That could improve services for victims of car wrecks and other accidents, who are currently brought to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin.
“As we look at the population growth, based on that demand and based on the growth over the next five years, we will evaluate how we increase our trauma need at Hays,” Dyer said.
The hospital took some initial criticism for high numbers of hospital-to-hospital transfers. In its first few months of operation, Seton Hays transferred out about 60 patients a month to other area hospitals. But as Seton built up its capacity and staffing, those numbers dropped into the 20s, Dyer s aid, with about a dozen patients transferred in from other hospitals. Now, most transfers are appropriate, he noted, with pediatric patients heading to Dell Children’s Hospital or psychiatric patients going to mental health facilities.
Seton has also worked to aggressively expand and promote some departments, such as oncology, neurology and cardiology. Within two weeks of opening, the hospital staff had performed the new facility’s first open heart surgery, and 31 more followed over the next 11 months.
This fall, when Seton opens its outpatient radiation vault, some cancer patients could receive all of their medical care in Hays County. The hospital is also preparing to launch a minimally invasive surgery center, and is gathering data for a stroke center.
“The presence of the Seton Hays Medical Center in Kyle has brought advanced medical care to our citizens, improved the level of medical knowledge in the South Austin area and has overall improved the standard of life that our citizens can enjoy,” said Kyle Interim City Manager James Earp. “Seton Hays has surpassed all expectations as evidenced by their amazing initial numbers.”
