Boston Children's Hospital required to provide cost analysis for proposed $1 billion expansion
Massachusetts Public Health Department request partially spurred by local group trying to save healing garden located on the hospital premises.
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The Massachusetts Department of Public Health will require Boston Children's Hospital to coordinate with an independent firm and provide a cost analysis for a $1 billion expansion proposal that the healthcare facility floated last year, according to a letter issued by the Department.
DPH has the authority to request that any such facility submit a Determination of Need to assist in the department's evaluation of any new projects.
The DPH request was partially spurred by the efforts of a local group dubbed Friends of Prouty Garden. Prouty Garden, a healing garden located on the hospital premises, would be eliminated to make way for new building space if the project is eventually approved.
In the Feb. 11 letter, Darrell Villaruz, interim manager of the state's Determination of Need program told Boston Children's Hospital Corporation facilities planning and design manager Melissa Aureli that the department made the request following a review of the hospital's application. The project would entail construction of an 11-story inpatient clinical building and renovations of the hospital's main campus to expand service capacity. An 8-story ambulatory clinical services building located in Brookline would also be constructed, if approved.
[Also: Updated list of hospital construction and expansion projects in 2016]
The Friends group is hoping the proposal is scrapped in favor of an alternative. Its goal is to preserve the half-acre Prouty Garden, touting its 60-year history and the therapeutic benefits they claim it provides to patients.
Member Gus Murby said that support for the group has grown since its inception last year. In the fall, an anonymous donor funded legal fees for the group, which has hired environmental law firm McGregor and Legere to examine some of the legal and regulatory angles.
"It provides opportunities for solitude, and ease of access for patients," said Murby, whose late son utilized the garden when he was hospitalized with leukemia. "There is in fact a quantifiable benefit in terms of medical costs. I don't believe the hospital has done anything at all to quantify the value of the Prouty Garden, (but) it has a measurable impact on recovery. There's an objective clinical side to this."
As it stands, the project has a proposed maximum capital expenditure of $1.068 billion, with annual incremental operating costs of almost $138 million, according to the letter.
[Also: Boston Children's Hospital buys New York-based Children's & Women's Physicians of Westchester]
Villaruz also wrote that the hospital "is required to select a qualified firm … to conduct the analysis to address the cost impact led by a professional with experience in healthcare economics and financial management." The name and credentials of the firm will have to be submitted to DPH for approval before work is allowed to begin.
The credentials will be reviewed "to ensure that there is no conflict of interest, either organizational or personal," wrote Villaruz.
Per Determination of Need regulations, the four-month period for review of the application will be stayed until a final cost analysis is received by DPH.
Calls to Boston Children's Hospital were not immediately returned.
Twitter: @JELagasse
