UF HEALTH EXTENDS ITS REACH IN CENTRAL FLORIDA COMMUNITIES
UF Health leaders have made a series of bold moves to strengthen and improve the availability of high-quality, efficient, and affordable health care in Central Florida.
In early 2020, UF Health acquired two regional hospitals from Central Florida Health. Leesburg Regional Medical Center is now UF Health Leesburg Hospital, and The Villages® Regional Hospital has become UF Health The Villages® Hospital. The move extends world-class health care to Lake, Sumter, and Marion counties through the 660- bed regional system.
Long-term plans call for building a general acute care hospital in association with The Villages® along with facility improvements and new equipment and technologies at the existing hospitals.
In addition, a new 25,000-square-foot freestanding emergency room has opened on State Road 44 in Wildwood, across from Brownwood Paddock Square in The Villages®. It is equipped with 16 beds and features laboratory, pharmacy, and respiratory therapy services as well as the latest diagnostic imaging technologies.
At the same time, UF Health announced The Villages® and University of Florida Health plan to develop a comprehensive health care campus that will bring education, research, and advanced health care and wellness services to the popular community.
The Villages® seeks to become America’s “healthiest hometown,” and the broad vision will include a variety of UF Health medical practices as well as teaching and research alliances with various UF colleges, including Dentistry, Health and Human Performance, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Professions, and Veterinary Medicine, along with associated centers and institutes. UF/IFAS extension programming focused on food and nutrition also will be a highlight.
“This expansion provides UF Health with long-needed additional clinical locations to support the training of the next generation of students, medical residents, and fellows who will care for residents of Florida, now the third-most-populated state in the nation,” said David R. Nelson, M.D., senior vice president for health affairs at UF and president of UF Health.
And in another exciting move, UF Health in January expanded its relationship with Halifax Health with the opening of a full-service hospital in Volusia County. The 43-bed, six-story medical center also includes a two-story medical annex building.
Adjacent to Interstate 4 at State Road 472 and northeast of Orlando, the 280,000-square-foot Halifax Health|UF Health – Medical Center of Deltona in its first year will have 211 full-time equivalent employees for 11 specialties ranging from anesthesia and cardiology to emergency care and general surgery, and an overall economic impact of $133 million at completion.
Management, operations, staffing, and quality is overseen by a team appointed by UF Health and Halifax Health, continuing a tight working relationship the two health systems have enjoyed for several years. They already collaborate on heart and vascular surgery, pediatric care, neurosurgery, and kidney transplantation, and UF Health surgeons and other physicians are based in Daytona Beach.