A rise in admissions has prompted Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., to consider expanding its inpatient facility to roughly double its current size, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
An increase in the number of complicated surgeries and bone marrow transplants — which typically necessitate a 30-day stay — has been a major drive behind the growing admissions at Moffitt.
Given the center's current location and inability to obtain additional land from its neighbor, the University of South Florida, Moffitt's construction options are pretty limited to building up, not out. President and CEO Alan List, MD, told the Tampa Bay Times that the main option currently under consideration involves tearing down the nearly 30-year-old, five-story building and replacing it with a new facility with 12 floors.
Despite the enormity of the project, the hospital would remain fully functioning during the construction of the new facility, according to the report.
A more definitive decision on the construction project will not be made until later in the year when Moffitt figures out if it can raise enough money from the state and private sources and after the opening of the cancer center's $88 million outpatient facility.
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Cleveland Clinic Florida cancer, neurology center to open next month
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To build or not to build? That is the question for hospitals and health systems