Health network planned for New Orleans

Tenet Healthcare Corp. said recently that it plans to invest several hundred million dollars in a new health network anchored in New Orleans.

Tenet said that prior to the hurricanes it was the largest provider of hospital services in the New Orleans area with more than 1,000 patient beds, 5,500 employees, 2,000 affiliated physicians and an annual payroll of more than $221 million.

"Research shows that, over time, at least a majority of New Orleans' population is expected to return, augmented by many more who will be drawn to the incredible reconstruction effort that has only just begun," said Trevor Fetter, Tenet's president and CEO. "Tenet will rebuild and restore where we can. We will construct new facilities where we need to, and we will give New Orleans a locally focused network that will be essential to meet the community's health care in the years ahead."

Hurricane Katrina severely damaged two of Tenet's central hospital campuses in New Orleans - the 317-bed Memorial Medical Center and 187-bed Lindy Boggs Medical Center - which remain closed indefinitely.

Three other hospitals serving the region - the 174-bed NorthShore Regional Medical Center in Slidell, 203-bed Kenner Regional Medical Center in Kenner and 207-bed Meadowcrest Hospital in Gretna - were damaged but are slowly returning to service.

Dallas-based Tenet has hired New Orleans-based Sizeler Architects to design the repair and construction of facilities in the new network, which will be called the NOLA Regional Health Network. Tenet plans to select a local market leader for the new network shortly.

The cost of creating the new network has not been determined, but Tenet estimates it could cost "hundreds of millions of dollars." The company expects a large portion of the cost to be covered by insurance settlements.

Tenet said it plans for the network to include helping physicians associated with all Tenet facilities reopen their practices and begin serving patients as soon as possible, reopening Tenet's diagnostic imaging services offices at multiple sites in New Orleans, reopening the New Orleans Surgery and Heart Institute on the Memorial campus within six months and restoring services at the Lindy Boggs and Memorial downtown campuses.

"The Katrina tragedy offers us a great opportunity to reinvent how we will offer our services, based on the community's expected needs in the future," Fetter said. "We won't just rebuild traditional hospitals; we will create a forward-looking network of health care services focused on the needs of the 'new' New Orleans."

Tenet owns and operates acute care hospitals and related services, including five hospitals in the Dallas area.