The new owners of the former Los Angeles-based Pacific Alliance Medical Center, which closed in November 2017, said during a press conference July 28 they plan to reopen the facility by the end of next summer as a "healthcare city," Los Angeles Downtown News reports.
Healthcare organizations Allied Physicians of California, or Allied Pacific IPA, and AHMC Healthcare — both in Alhambra, Calif. — jointly bought the 90,000-square-foot hospital for roughly $33 million last month from La Societe Francaise De Bienfaisance Mutuelle De Los Angeles.
A board official told the publication the facility will reopen as Allied Healthcare City and will comprise urgent care services, a comprehensive clinic and an ambulatory center. He said though the community would rather reopen the hospital as it was, officials cannot do so because the hospital surrendered its operating license when it closed last year due to costs related to retrofitting its facilities to meet the state's seismic standards.
"So today as we all sit here at this hospital facility, it is not a hospital, it does not have [an] active hospital license," the board official said. "The best we can do at this time, practically, pragmatically, is not resurrect an active hospital, but instead build an outpatient center. We can at least bridge the gap in the services needed."
Officials expect to build the healthcare city in three phases. By the end of this summer, officials expect to open a comprehensive urgent care center. By the end of the second phase, the facility will house a multispecialty clinic and potentially house a behavioral health facility. The third phase involves the construction of a new hospital on the site to provide essential services to the community, according to the report.
Officials did not produce a timeline for the second and third phases during the July 28 press conference.
The facility will initially employ 15 to 20 individuals and operate for 12 hours per day, eventually expanding operations to 24 hours per day.
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