Regardless of what Congress does — or does not do concerning health care reform matters little to the Lakeway Regional Medical Center.

Funding is in place, construction is under way, and the hospital will be built. When the facility is completed it will literally revolutionize the area by providing new jobs and pumping millions of dollars into the local economy.
A group of about 15 people representing the medical center, including Hospital Board President Dr. Samuel J. Demaio, Managing Director Dan Brouillette and Lakeway Mayor Dave DeOme visited lawmakers in Washington, D.C. last June to tie up loose ends in the funding of the facility.
“The trip was aimed at securing financing,” explained Demaio, a cardiologist. “It was a very successful trip.”
Hospital and city officials were also relieved to learn that proposed health care legislation would not have an impact on the facility. One bill proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives would outlaw physcian-owned hospitals; however, the project will be grandfathered into any reform package, since it was conceived and approved before the passage of legislation.
“If Congress does pass any physican-owned restrictions, we believe we are far enough along to be grandfathered,” Demaio said. “As it stands now there hasn’t been a bill passed, and who knows where that’s going to go? Even if something is passed, we have spent millions of dollars on architectural plans and site development.”
For Demaio and Brouillette, Lakeway is a logical location for a new medical facility.
“This is an area that is clearly under-served,” Demaio observed. “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development clearly agrees, because they don’t finance a project like this one unless it is under served.
“Let’s face it — this area is growing by leaps and bounds,” Demaio reasoned. “And even though Lakeway and Bee Cave are growing, the lack of adequate medical facilities have clearly hurt the growth. There is virtually no medical facilities between here and Marble Falls that is closer than downtown Austin.”
In truth, it was City of Lakeway officials that saw the need for a hospital and approached Demaio and his group two years ago about constructing a comprehensive medical facility to service the area.
As the group began to examine the needs of the area, it quickly became apparent that there were numerous areas of medical expertise that needed addressing.
“This is going to be a true general acute care facility,” noted Brouillette. “In fact, the more we examine the needs, it becomes apparent that a more comprehensive facility is needed, primarily because of the expanding demographics.”
Demaio said the hospital is being constructed in three phases. The first phase alone will cost in the vicinity of $150 million.
Phase 1 would include about 179 beds — that would include services including emergency medical services, heart bypass surgery, cancer therapy, radiation treatments, OBGYN services, orthopedics and more — even bariatric surgery.
“It would be a full-service hospital,” Demaio said.
As for Phase II, Demaio said the facility would be expanded to about 250 beds.
“At that point, if there are services that we will not have in Phase I, they would be included,” Demaio said. “Phase III could see the hospital grow into 450 beds. Really, it is a simple concept — as the community grows, the hospital would grow to meet those needs.”
DeOme said the plan has been charted with an eye aimed at future growth.
“The Phase I contemplates all these potential needs,” DeOme said. “Phase I will be built with virtually every need we have, but with an eye toward adding additional needs that would have very little impact on the existing services.”
Brouillette said the medical facility has been planned this way with purpose.
“We have planned things this way to have as minimal impact on the existing hospital as possible,” Brouillette noted. “Typically, when a hospital expands, floors have to be closed and services have to be moved to avoid construction related issues like dust, etc. So minimizing the impact if additional construction is required has been planned in a way with these issues in mind. This was given a great degree of importance in the initial design of the total building.”
Such extensive planning means the ground preparation must be exacting.
“That [ground preparation] is a big reason why this horizontal phase has taken so long to complete,” Demaio said. “The first phase of the hospital grew extensively early on. Initially, we didn’t plan to have some of the services that we are going to now have in Phase I. That caused us to redesign the hospital.”
That meant that the energy requirements had to be adjusted. Austin Energy will provide electricity to the hospital, and when the initial plans were expanded, it meant that plans had to be redesigned, and that medical center officials had to approach the City of Lakeway for new permitting requirements.
The City of Lakeway is doing its best to streamline the zoning process to help facilitate the changes, DeOme said.
“Our goal is to make certain that we [the city] do not hold them up,” DeOme said. “It is important that we [the city] do our jobs as expeditiously as possible.”
In addition to offering local residents top-quality health care, the economic impact on the South Lake Travis area will be felt at every turn.
Demaio anticipates that Phase I alone could drum up to 3,000 jobs. These are good paying jobs.
“We are talking about a lot of nurses, doctors, support staff, physical therapists, and administrative staff,” Demaio pointed out. “There will be a significant number of good paying jobs that will be available.”
And attracting quality medical professionals to the Lake Travis area should be an easy task. Demaio said the area is an ideal location for doctors, with all the amenities the lake area offers from boating, to fishing and, of course, golf — the medical professional’s traditional game of choice. Adding to the dream scenario is the construction of Tuscan Village, directly across the street from the hospital. Tuscan Village will be an age-restricted community aimed at older residents who still seek an active lifestyle.
Demaio anticipates the first phase of the medical center to be completed within the next 23 months.