CONTINUED FROM 1 ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE Residents in Leander and Liberty Hill have to travel to nearby cities to receive hospital care. Most of them are traveling to Georgetown, Round Rock, Burnet, Cedar Park and Austin to receive the care they need, but with worsening trac volumes, commute times have increased.
Identifying additional needs In addition to increasing commute times for med- ical care, residents in Leander and Liberty Hill are also expected to see higher costs for health insur- ance and services by 2027, according to data through ZoomProspector provided by city ocials. Ocials said the growing demand for health care services in conjunction with rising costs is a lot dif- ferent now compared to several years ago. “There’s a higher and higher need everywhere for health care, and then you just add to that how much growth we have, and it’s just exponential how much more health care we need than what we needed 15 years ago,” DeLisle said. DeLisle said getting care for specialty needs, such as autoimmune deciencies and cancer, is dicult for residents in the Leander and Liberty Hill area. Leander has one Quest Diagnostics lab location, but DeLisle said most doctor’s oces in the area request blood work from clinical pathology labs. DeLisle said Cedar Park’s three labs always have long waits. The recent openings of Austin Gastroenterol- ogy and Austin Diagnostic Clinic help residents with accessing specialty care and surgical procedures, ocials said, which were not readily available previously. At the April 26 Liberty Hill City Council meet- ing, elementary school student Alice Raety was recognized for a letter she wrote to the city regard- ing the growing demand for hospitals. “We need more hospitals. People will be healthy. No one will be sick,” she said in the letter. “Plus, we only have clinics. No hospitals. Yes, I know it will take months, but we need one.” Liberty Hill Mayor Liz Branigan emphasized while the city could use a hospital, it’s important not to rush. “Yes, a hospital would be nice, but we really want a really good one,” she said. “If you want something really good, you just have to wait the amount of time it takes.” Hospital debut Branigan said no hospitals are planned for Liberty Hill, and the city will be well covered through the St. David’s facilities in Georgetown and in Leander. The $182 million St. David’s hospital in Leander will have 34 beds and oer inpatient and outpa- tient surgery, critical care capabilities, robotic ser- vices, and maternity and newborn services. Located between the existing St. David’s Emergency Center and a medical oce building, the facility will con- nect to the emergency center while also have room to accommodate future growth both on the property and inside the facility. “I still don’t know if [the Leander hospital is] going to be able to handle the capacity out here because we still have houses and apartment buildings just like wild¦owers going up in the area,” Dawson said. Randall Malik, Leander’s Director of Economic Development, said the new hospital will bring 200 jobs to the city, making it one of the city’s larg- est employers.
City limits
LIBERTY HILL
COMMUTE TIME*
DISTANCE
LOCATION
Cedar Park Regional Medical Center Dell Children’s Medical Center North Campus St. David’s Georgetown Hospital
22 minutes
15 miles
24-31 minutes
15 miles
20 miles
31-34 minutes
St. David's Round Rock Medical Center
20 miles
32-44 minutes
25 miles
25 miles
Ascension Seton Highland Lakes Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Marble Falls Dell Children's Medical Center
28 minutes
38-47 minutes
40 miles
40 miles
46-50 minutes
LEANDER
DISTANCE
LOCATION
COMMUTE TIME*
10 miles
Cedar Park Regional Medical Center Dell Children’s Medical Center North Campus
10-14 minutes
10 miles
12 minutes
15 miles
St. David's Round Rock Medical Center
20-25 minutes
15 miles
30 miles
St. David’s Georgetown Hospital Dell Children's Medical Center
21-23 minutes 34-39 minutes
30 miles
*COMMUTE TIMES WERE CALCULATED AT 5 P.M. MAY 31 TO SHOW PEAK RUSH HOUR. THE RANGE IN TIMES REPRESENTS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ROUTES AND USE OF THE TOLL ROAD.
SOURCE: GOOGLE MAPSCOMMUNITY IMPACT
With St. David’s HealthCare expected to break ground by the end of 2023 on a full-service hospital next to its emergency center in Leander, area ocials are optimistic it will relieve the health care demand in Leander and Liberty Hill. The hospital is expected to open its doors in 2025. “Being able to have that care entirely in town where it’s just a couple of minutes away, you have that peace of mind that you can get there in a hurry; that’s going to be fantastic,” Leander Mayor Christine DeLisle said. Growing need for health care In addition to the CPRMC and St. David’s George- town, Leander and Liberty Hill residents also have to drive as far as Round Rock, Marble Falls and Burnet to receive the type of care they need. Liberty Hill resident Chelsey Dawson took her daughter to Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin for a tonsil removal surgery, which was a 50-minute commute. Dawson, who is also epileptic, travels two hours to see her neurologist in San Antonio. “I haven’t found even that kind of service out here yet that I’m comfortable with,” she said. Although Liberty Hill ocials have yet to identify the need for a hospital, residents are
hoping to see plans for one before the spike in population. “I just want us to be forward thinking and have a vision,” Jackson Sanders said. “I want us to be planning in front of the growth in regard to health care facilities.” St. David’s HealthCare CEO David Hustutler said due to the tremendous growth in Central Texas, St. David’s is continuing to monitor the need for hospitals and clinics in area submarkets, which prompted the launch of the upcom- ing Leander facility. “We know that these communities are going to continue to grow rapidly, and as they do, families who need health care services in those communi- ties are not going to want to have to travel. They want convenient access to these services,” he said. St. David’s does not have any facilities in the Liberty Hill area, nor plans for one, but as the city grows, the health care provider will keep track of the demand for anything specic in the future. “As those communities grow, we evaluate whether we expand those services into more acute expanded outpatient or even inpatient services from there,” Hustutler said.
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