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Inova breaks ground on Alexandria, Springfield hospitals

In late September, Inova Health System broke ground on two new hospitals — one in Alexandria and the other in Springfield, the start of a new phase for the Falls Church health system.

Both acute-care hospitals are expected to be completed in 2028, officials say. Inova Alexandria, which will sit on the former Landmark Mall site, will replace the existing Inova Alexandria Hospital, and Inova Franconia-Springfield will join Inova HealthPlex as the health system’s first hospital in Springfield.

The new hospitals aim to update Inova’s offerings to patients, says Heather Russell, Inova’s vice president for eastern region development.

“Our current Alexandria hospital … is out-of-date and needs to be replaced. [This project provides] us an opportunity to rightsize our facilities,” Russell says. “It has really provided us an opportunity to look at the future of health care delivery and standardize our processes.”

Combined, the two projects are expected to cost $2 billion and span more than 1.4 million square feet, with Alexandria’s facility measuring in at 838,000 square feet. Initially, neither of the hospitals will be designated as trauma centers, but Inova will likely pursue trauma certification in the future, according to Russell.

In addition to the new hospital, Alexandria’s Inova campus will include a new cancer center, medical office building and garage, taking up about half of the former Landmark Mall’s 52-acre lot, which the health system is leasing from the City of Alexandria.

The other half of the site is being developed by real estate developer Foulger Pratt into WestEnd Alexandria, a retail and residential community.

“[The hospital complex] will very much be a sort of town center with a medical theme, because you’re going to have this acute-care hospital and cancer center as the anchor,” says Stephanie Landrum, president and CEO of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership.

Inova’s plans for Springfield are more straightforward. The health system purchased the site years earlier and is planning to include a hospital, medical office building and garage there, according to Tom McDuffie, president of Inova Realty, the health system’s real estate branch.

In November, Inova is also set to open a health center near Potomac Yard and National Landing, a facility that will include an emergency room, outpatient services, doctors’ offices and an ambulatory surgery center.   

Centra names permanent CEO

Lynchburg-based health system Centra has selected interim leader Richard Tugman as its president and CEO, overseeing a health system that serves more than 500,000 patients in Central and Southern Virginia, operating four hospitals, five medical centers and numerous primary care and specialty practices.

Tugman had served as interim CEO since March, replacing Amy Carrier, who’d been CEO since 2021.

Asked in March about Carrier’s departure, Dr. Tom Nygaard, chairman of the health system’s board, told WSET, “We felt that it was time for the organization to move on. Take a bit of a different direction,”

Tugman also served as Centra’s interim CEO for several months before Carrier’s hiring, following the January 2021 departure of former Centra CEO Dr. Andrew Mueller, who left to become CEO of MaineHealth in Portland, Maine.

From 2016 to 2021, Tugman had been CEO of Piedmont Community Health Plan, a health insurance subsidiary of Centra Health. In April, Piedmont, which stopped offering individual health insurance in 2023, announced it would stop selling group commercial health insurance at the end of 2024. Piedmont will “wind down its business” in 2025 and “some period beyond,” according to a news release.

“For more than two years, Piedmont has explored ways to increase its critical mass to become more competitive with national insurers through potential partnerships and/or outside investments,” interim Piedmon CEO Ryan Ziemann said in an statement released in April. “While there was much outside interest in Piedmont, the company was unable to reach an agreement that would enable it to compete on a more level footing with its much larger competitors.”

Earlier in his career, Tugman was vice president and general counsel for Lynchburg’s Fleet Laboratories.

“Richard’s performance since his appointment in March 2024 as interim president [and] CEO, in addition to his leadership in the same role in 2021, validated the board’s full confidence, as well as that of our providers, caregivers and members of the communities in which Centra serves,” Nygaard said in a statement Thursday. “He has the ability to strategically guide the organization in its mission to provide access to the best health care now and into the future as we adapt to a challenging and changing health care environment.”

In late December 2023, Centra filed a $7 million lawsuit against Lynchburg Hematology-Oncology Clinic, an independent physicians group, stating that the clinic overbilled Centra for services from 2016 to 2021. In September, the case was dismissed.

The two parties “mutually and amicably resolved the lawsuit and related disputes” according to Emelyn Gwynn, a spokesperson for Centra.

LHOC’s professional services agreement with Centra expired at the end of March and LHOC providers then stopped treating patients at the Centra Alan B. Pearson Regional Cancer Center in Lynchburg, according to an announcement on the LHOC website. In April, Centra launched the Centra Hematology Oncology Clinics at the Pearson Cancer and at Centra Southside Community Hospital in Farmville.

Centra Health’s oncology department currently has two doctors in Farmville and seven in Lynchburg, with five more doctors starting “in the next few months,” according to Gwynn.

Four physicians who previously worked at LHOC now work for Centra, according to Gwynn. “Additionally, we have 12 advanced practice providers,” she said in a statement. “We are prioritizing the recruitment and interviews of more permanent providers to join CHOC. This will remain a top priority as we seek to build a long-term, sustainable team.”

 

2024 Virginia CFO Awards: Nonprofits: John Zabrowski, VHC Health

VHC Health Chief Financial Officer John Zabrowski zeroed in on accounting and finance early in life, double majoring in the subjects at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and then doing two internships in public accounting after graduation.

“I love economics, I love statistics,” he says. “I found that I was really attracted to the types of jobs where the assignment was to learn about the client and build great relationships with the management team and help deliver an audit.”

Zabrowski worked at a couple banks, became a certified public accountant and earned his MBA from DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in Chicago. But he soon found that “something was missing” for him in the corporate finance career he was building. “After a couple years, [orchestrating transactions] wasn’t really enjoyable,” he remembers. “I didn’t get fulfillment out of it.”

In 2005, he applied for a job at Deaconess Health System in Evansville, Indiana, and was hired as a finance manager. At the CFO’s suggestion, he started his tenure there by witnessing an open-heart surgery, standing in the room right next to the patient on the table and observing the institution’s health care in action. And that was it — Zabrowski was hooked.

“What I thought was so cool about it was that everybody in that room did something to make that patient’s life better,” he says. “That’s my passion. That’s what drives me.”

He stayed at Deaconess for eight years, rising to system controller and director of finance. From there, he became a regional CFO for St. Vincent Health, working at a 508-bed, dual-campus, integrated health care and trauma care institution in Evansville, Indiana. He was instrumental in the establishment of significant ambulatory assets and helped build a specialty orthopedic hospital in collaboration with an orthopedic group.

Soon, his effectiveness as a finance leader and genuine enthusiasm for health care leadership drew the interest of Arlington County-based VHC Health (formerly Virginia Hospital Center), which he joined in 2018. He now serves as VHC’s system senior vice president, CFO and chief strategy officer.

During his tenure, Zabrowski has been a key player in acquisitions, growth plans and joint venture development. He also led the issuance of $274 million in municipal bonds, successfully obtaining for VHC Health an AA- stable outlook rating from Fitch Ratings and an A+ stable outlook rating from S&P Global.

“John is intelligent, thoughtful, and strategic — the best CFO I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with,” says VHC Health President and CEO Christopher T. Lane. “His balanced approach to strategic and financial growth combines a supportive, enthusiastic attitude with high expectations to achieve the team’s goals.”

Zabrowski, for his part, shares that enthusiasm for his co-workers at VHC.

“The people I’ve worked with, I couldn’t begin to be more blessed that they’re happy to work with me, happy to teach me, happy to give me an opportunity to learn,” he says. “Everyone here is phenomenal and really helpful and really supportive.”

That attitude of teamwork is part of what enables his institution to be taking on what he describes as an “aggressive” capital project to open up 25 new physician offices over the next five years. The goal is to modernize the system’s facilities and adjust the way it delivers care.

“It’s a really massive investment,” he notes. “To be able to count on spending half-a-billion dollars and having a capital plan to run it, that’s really good.”

Along with the ability to help improve patients’ lives, the work of building something new inspires him. He’s focused on facilitating access and bringing a “people-first lens” to the work of innovating better ways of delivering care.

“I like the opportunity to innovate and build with this team,” he says. “We have done so many amazing things in such a short period of time. I find that really rewarding and invigorating.”

Inova Fairfax Hospital ranks No. 1 in Va. for fourth year

For the fourth consecutive year, Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church has taken the No. 1 spot in Virginia on the U.S. News and World Report’s annual list of the best hospitals in the nation, released Tuesday. 

The Inova Health System hospital also ranked first in the Washington, D.C., metro area for the fourth straight year, and 36th in the nation for obstetrics and gynecology. For children’s care, it ranked third in Virginia and 17th in the mid-Atlantic. U.S. News included data from Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital in its evaluation.

“Year after year, I am more and more proud of Inova and the exceptional team of health care workers I am fortunate to lead,” Inova President and CEO Dr. J. Stephen Jones said in a statement. “Ranking No. 1 in the state and the region for four years in a row underscores our relentless commitment to providing clinical excellence and compassionate care to every patient in every community we are privileged to serve.”

U.S. News and World Report’s 2024-2025 Best Hospitals rankings evaluated data from 5,000 hospitals and surveys from 30,000 physicians. Nationally, 160 hospitals ranked in at least one of the 15 specialties assessed. For 12 of the specialty areas, rankings rely on data sources like Medicare. For the remaining three specialties — ophthalmology, psychiatry and rheumatology — rankings are based on expert opinion.

U.S. News and World Report evaluated 120 hospitals in Virginia. Its top hospitals in Virginia are as follows:

1. Inova Fairfax Hospital, Falls Church

2. VCU Medical Center, Richmond

3. (tie) Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Roanoke

3. (tie) Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Norfolk

3. (tie) University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville

6. Virginia Hospital Center, Arlington County

7. (tie) Mary Washington Hospital, Fredericksburg

7. (tie) Winchester Medical Center, Winchester

9. (tie) Henrico Doctors’ Hospitals, Henrico County

9. (tie) Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk

Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center ranked second in Virginia for the second consecutive year and first in Richmond for the 14th year in a row. The hospital also ranked in three adult specialties: No. 19 for rehabilitation, No. 33 for orthopedics and No. 42 for cardiology, heart and vascular surgery.

VCU Medical Center was also second in Virginia and seventh in the Mid-Atlantic for children’s care, ranking nationally in eight children’s specialties. U.S. News and Word Report’s evaluation of the VCU hospital included data from Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU.

“These rankings are a testament to the unwavering dedication and collaborative spirit of our outstanding team members,” Michael Roussos, president of VCU Medical Center, said in a statement. “We are inspired daily by their commitment to excellence in patient care, medical education and groundbreaking research.”

In a three-way tie, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and the University of Virginia Medical Center placed third in the state. U.S. News ranked Sentara Norfolk General Hospital No. 1 for the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News area.

Steve Arner, Carilion’s president and chief operating officer, said in a statement: “Quality guides everything that we do, and this U.S. News ranking is one example of the amazing work Carilion teams are doing every day. It’s great to see this commitment recognized on the national stage.”

U.Va. Medical Center placed first in Virginia and sixth in the Mid-Atlantic region for children’s care. U.S. News and World Report used data from University of Virginia Children’s Hospital in its evaluation of U.Va. Medical Center. The Charlottesville hospital ranked nationally in nine children’s specialties; of those, its highest ranking was 23rd for neonatology.

DANA WESTON GRAVES

Dana Weston Graves will never forget a meeting she had with a vendor who came in and started shaking hands and speaking to a man in the room whom he assumed was the hospital’s president.

“It never occurred to him that the one woman in the room could be the hospital president,” Graves says.

While this experience served as a stark reminder that people still inherently assume men to be leaders, Graves says it’s been refreshing to see — particularly during the past 15 years — more and more women at the helm of hospitals and health systems.

“I’m very grateful to my incredible parents who allowed me to be a messy little girl, which gave me the courage and resiliency that’s required in leadership,” she says. In her community, Graves also serves on the board of YMCA of South Hampton Roads and has been involved with United Way of South Hampton Roads.

She has also been recognized multiple times on Becker’s Hospital Review’s annual list of women hospital presidents and CEOs to know. But recognition for Graves feels “strange,” she says, because she feels she’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing every day.

But “the opportunity to be recognized as a strong African American leader or strong woman leader is meaningful, because it allows someone else to see themselves reflected in leadership.”

RELATED STORY: 2024 Virginia Women in Leadership Awards

Sentara boosts Halifax hospital investment to $107M

Last year, Sentara Health unveiled plans to invest $70 million to replace the aging Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital in South Boston with a new acute care hospital. On Tuesday, the health care system announced the investment will be closer to $107 million.

“It’s just part of the evolution of the process,” Brian Zwoyer, president of Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital, said of increasing costs. “So, you get into something and you earmark dollars for what you think your cost is going to be, and then as you’re designing and making sure that you have all the right pieces and parts in the project, and then you come up against timing, the shift in construction costs and and all of that. It’s just really been an evolution of economy and cost and time.”

The current hospital was built in 1953 and offers 192 beds. Some days the hospital has 36 patients and other days there are 17, according to Zwoyer.

“Seventy years ago, even 20 years ago … there was a fair amount of industry here,” Zwoyer said. “And so there’s been an out-migration of population. Those businesses have left, and so, what you have is a much smaller community.”

Accordingly, the new hospital also will be smaller, providing 42 to 45 beds, according to Zwoyer.

Scheduled to be completed in summer 2026, the new facility is slated to be 100,000 square feet and is being built so that its footprint can be expanded as needed. “So, for example, if we needed to expand our surgical suites out a little bit, we have space adjacent to the building,” Zwoyer said.

The new hospital will be built behind the current hospital, where the now-closed Fuller Roberts Clinic sits. The facility will offer general surgical services, intensive care, inpatient treatment, observation beds, an emergency department, a catheterization lab, operating rooms, a procedural room, a dialysis suite, imaging services, a laboratory, pathology, pharmacy, rehabilitation, respiratory therapy and a helipad, according to a news release.

Currently, helicopters used for transporting patients “land in the local cemetery,” about two miles from the hospital, according to Zwoyer,

Each patient room will have a window for natural sunlight, a private bathroom and furniture to allow guests to spend the night comfortably.

In recent months, clinicians have practiced treating patients in mock patient rooms to see whether plans for the new rooms will be adequate.

“We have our clinicians come through and say, ‘Does this meet your needs? Do we have all of the O2 receptacles in the right place? Are the outlets at the right size?’ And, literally down to the paper towel holders: ‘Are they in the right place?’ Nobody is better to tell us where we need to have ergonomic design than our clinicians and our staff.”

Since 2010, 167 hospitals have closed or converted to a model that doesn’t offer inpatient care in rural communities, according to a 2024 report from Massachusetts-based consulting firm Chartis. An additional 418 rural hospitals are vulnerable to closing, the report stated.

“We’re dedicated to be here and support the community,” Zwoyer said.

In May 2023, Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital announced plans to phase out obstetric services within the year due to “a significant decreased in births due to changing demographics, aging populations and a national declining birth rate.” The new hospital doesn’t plan to reopen birthing services “at this time,” according to Zwoyer.

There are several hospitals between 45 minutes and an hour away, and patients are traveling to those to deliver babies, Zwoyer said,

Between 2011 and 2021, 267 rural hospitals dropped OB services, according to Chartis.

In 2015, the former Halifax Regional Health System added Sentara to its name in recognition of its merger with Norfolk-based Sentara in 2013.

With 30,000 employees, Sentara has 11 hospitals in Virginia and one in northeastern North Carolina.

 

 

 

Bon Secours tops off new Suffolk hospital

Bon Secours held a topping-out ceremony Thursday for its $80 million, 98,000-square-foot hospital, Harbour View Medical Center, in Suffolk, expected to be completed in 2025.

The surgically focused hospital will have 18 medical/surgical beds and four operating rooms and serve as an extension of the services offered on the campus, which currently has an emergency department, outpatient imaging, outpatient lab services, an ambulatory surgical center and physician practices. The services will be expanded to include a hospital with inpatient beds and operating rooms.

In the ceremony, a construction crew lifted the final steel beam on the new medical center, which had signatures from doctors, nurses, associates and community members.

Bon Secours broke ground on the hospital in October 2022.

Sentara Halifax plans new, smaller hospital

Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital in South Boston is investing $70 million to construct a new acute care hospital to replace its aging predecessor, with completion set for late 2025 or early 2026.

The new hospital will be about a third the size of the existing 300,000-square-foot facility, which is licensed for 192 beds. Sentara Health determined a replacement was more cost-effective than spending an estimated $180 million needed to renovate the older building.

The facility has been the subject of local speculation, with a Town Council member in February publishing an open letter alleging that Sentara planned to replace the hospital with a walk-in clinic.

The reality, says Dr. James Priest, the hospital’s chief medical officer, is that “the current hospital is 70 years old and will not sustain us going into the future, and unfortunately is failing us now from a facilities perspective.”

Just replacing systems like the hospital’s power plant and HVAC systems would cost $50 million alone, according to Sentara.

“The new hospital will allow us the opportunity to align the space for the services needed and modernize our building,” Priest says.

The hospital’s patient volume has decreased in recent years due to a shrinking and aging local population, Sentara says. The rural facility has also faced physician recruitment and retention challenges.

The new hospital will include inpatient medical and surgical beds, a cardiac catheterization suite, an emergency department, an intensive care unit, imaging services, a surgical suite and lab, among other departments. It will eliminate childbirth services due to a significant decrease in area births in recent years. 

Sentara has not confirmed how many beds will be at the new hospital, which is still in the design phase. 

“We’re really hoping to have a more robust outpatient service program,” says Brian Zwoyer, the hospital’s president. “As we move into the future, we really want to figure out how do we provide the same services that we’re providing, but at an easier, more efficient level of care.”

Zwoyer adds, “It is the first step in allowing us to really take a look at our campus and figure out how do we push care out into the community, because ultimately within the next five to 10 years, we would love to be able to have a health care campus versus just a hospital.”

LewisGale receives Level 2 trauma center status

Salem-based LewisGale Medical Center has been designated as a Level 2 trauma center by the Virginia Department of Health, the hospital system announced Wednesday.

The designation makes LewisGale the eighth Level 2 center in the state and the first in the region, according to the state health department.

One level below the top Level 1 designation, Level 2 trauma centers include “24-hour immediate coverage by general surgeons, as well as coverage by the specialties of orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, radiology and critical care,” according to the Falls Church-based American Trauma Society. However, it may need to transfer a patient to a Level 1 center to address more complex cases. Specialty requirements may be fulfilled by on call staff.

In a news release, LewisGale Medical Center said it pursued the status in response to the area’s need for enhanced comprehensive emergency health care service, adding that it benefits local and outlying areas and serves as a backup center for rural and community hospitals. Its sister facility, Blacksburg-based LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, is a Level 3 trauma center (lower on the scale than Level II) and has maintained the accreditation for 31 years.

“Recovery is greatly increased when a severely injured patient receives care at a designated trauma center within the first hour of injury,” Dr. Jaromir Kohout, trauma medical director at LewisGale Medical Center, said in a statement. “Achieving this Level 2 trauma center status is another example of how we are always striving to serve the residents of Southwest Virginia.”

The hospital’s trauma program is staffed 24 hours a day by board-certified trauma surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, critical care physicians and trauma-trained nurses.

LewisGale Medical Center and HCA Virginia invested more than $7 million over the past decade to become eligible to apply for the Level 2 Trauma designation, according to spokesperson Chris Finley. That includes building two new trauma bays in the emergency department, a rooftop helipad with direct access to the emergency department and operating rooms which speed the delivery of lifesaving care to the most critically ill patients when minutes matter most.”

“Earning these designations is a reflection of the tremendous dedication that our physicians, nurses, and healthcare staff have shown as we developed the trauma program,” Alan Fabian, LewisGale Medical Center CEO, said in a statement. “Their efforts are already resulting in more lives being saved, and we are proud to provide our community with quality trauma care in both the Roanoke and New River valleys.”

Owned by Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare and part of the larger HCA Virginia Health System, LewisGale Medical Center is one of four hospitals in the LewisGale Regional Health System, which also includes LewisGale hospitals in Allegheny and Montgomery counties and the town of Pulaski.

Bon Secours names Harbour View Hospital president

Andy Spicknall became the inaugural president of Bon Secours Harbour View Hospital in Suffolk on Monday.

Spicknall, who most recently served as vice president of operations at Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth, reports directly to Pat Davis-Hagens, the health system’s Hampton Roads market president.

“During his nearly 10 years with Bon Secours, Andy has been proven to be a dedicated servant leader to our patients in the Hampton Roads region,” Davis-Hagens said in a statement. “I’m excited that he will bring his experience to expand on his great work through this much-deserved appointment as the very first president for Bon Secours Harbour View Hospital.”

Spicknall will be responsible for the operational success of Harbour View, including the existing Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View and the upcoming Harbour View Hospital, scheduled to open in 2025. Bon Secours broke ground on the $80 million hospital in October 2022. It will be 98,000 square feet, with 18 medical/surgical beds and up to four operating rooms.

He joined Bon Secours Hampton Roads nine years ago as an administrative resident at Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center. From 2015 to 2017, Spicknall served as chief of staff, and from 2017 to May 2020, he served as administrative director of operations and ambulatory services for Maryview, DePaul Medical Center and Health Center at Harbour View, before assuming his most recent role at Maryview.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. Spicknall serves on the Harbour View Commerce Association board.