Category Archives: Ascension

DONALDSONVILLE The Ascension Parish School Board and the parish government are looking at jointly tackling carpool traffic problems at some of the older schools in the parish, with a new venture at one of those schools, Galvez Primary.

Under a proposed agreement, the School Board would provide the design and construction materials and the parish will provide the labor to extend the carpool line which is now simply one lane of two-lane Bayou Henderson Road in front of the school with a gravel drive onto unused property on the school site, to get more carpool traffic off the road.

"This is the first of what could be more, future agreements," Chad Lynch, the district's director of planning and construction, told the board's facilities management committee at its meeting Tuesday.

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The committee voted to recommend that the full board approve the Galvez Primary agreement at its next meeting.

Older schools don't have the turn lanes that the fast-growing school district incorporates at the entrances to the schools it has built since 2000, Lynch said.

Parish council members this past summer asked Lynch and his staff to meet with the council's transportation committee to start working out a solution for the carpool traffic problems.

PRAIRIEVILLE Daniel Johnson and his neighbors in Parker Place Estates face an either-or choice on school mornings, they say.

In addition to Galvez Primary, other schools facing those traffic woes include Prairieville Primary, Oak Grove and Central Primary.

The School Board will vote on the Galvez Primary proposal at its first meeting in the new year, on Jan. 7.

The board will also be voting at that meeting on the renewal of another intergovernmental agreement between the school district and the parish, an existing one set to expire on Dec. 31, that allows the parish to use four schools as shelters in time of emergency.

The four-year agreement allows the parish to use Dutchtown High and Dutchtown Middle, on the east bank, and Donaldsonville High and Lowery Middle, on the west bank, as emergency shelters.

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Joint effort by Ascension Parish, school district aimed at easing carpool traffic woes - The Advocate

The nations second-largest health system, Ascension, has agreed to allow the software behemoth Google access to tens of millions of patient records. The partnership, called Project Nightingale, aims to improve how information is used for patient care. Specifically, Ascension and Google are trying to build tools, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to make health records more useful, more accessible and more searchable for doctors.

Ascension did not announce the partnership: The Wall Street Journal first reported it.

Patients and doctors have raised privacy concerns about the plan. Lack of notice to doctors and consent from patients are the primary concerns.

As a public health lawyer, I study the legal and ethical basis for using data to promote public health. Information can be used to identify health threats, understand how diseases spread and decide how to spend resources. But its more complicated than that.

The law deals with what can be done with data; this piece focuses on ethics, which asks what should be done.

Beyond Hippocrates

Big-data projects like this one should always be ethically scrutinized. However, data ethics debates are often narrowly focused on consent issues.

In fact, ethical determinations require balancing different, and sometimes competing, ethical principles. Sometimes it might be ethical to collect and use highly sensitive information without getting an individuals consent.

Public health ethics are useful to evaluate activities that affect population health. A recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO) describes public health ethics with four principles:

Public health ethics is an appropriate framework for evaluating Project Nightingale, given its massive scale. But the current health care context is relevant.

The system and its struggles

For over a decade, scholars have argued that technological solutions are needed to address three major challenges to how the health system uses information.

First, the health system struggles to integrate new knowledge into patient care. New medical evidence takes 17 years to change clinical practice, on average. The breakneck pace of science challenges doctors to keep up. And, applying modern medical knowledge requires doctors to consider more factors than is humanly possible.

Second, information is central to preventing many medical errors, the third leading cause of death in America. Communication problems, judgment errors and incorrect diagnosis or treatment decisions can have devastating consequences for patients.

Third, the system does not learn from care. For example, a doctor and patient might try several different medications before finding the right one. One medication might not help, another might cause awful side effects, and finding the best medication might take months or years. The health system does not learn from that care process. Individual providers will gain knowledge over a lifetime, but that knowledge is never aggregated or shared efficiently.

To help address these challenges, the Institute of Medicine in 2007 introduced a vision for a learning health system that would quickly learn from patient care and use that knowledge to improve future care.

The concept is simple, but learning health systems require sophisticated information technology platforms capable of extracting knowledge from the existing evidence and millions of treatment records.

The benefits of Project Nightingale

Project Nightingale appears to align with the learning health system concept. Systematically improving health care is a clear common good.

Although a learning health system requires sharing patient data, patients stand to benefit from improved health care. Reciprocal data sharing by patients for a collective benefit is a prototypical example of the common good principle in public health ethics.

Project Nightingale might also improve health equity. For example, minorities and pregnant women are underrepresented in research studies, raising concerns that some medical knowledge might not be well tailored to these patients. A learning health system would improve understanding of what treatments are effective and safe for these underrepresented populations.

For small-scale activities, respect for persons usually demands giving people an opportunity to make a free and informed decision to participate. However, for activities carried out at the scale of the whole population, it is possible to show respect for persons by engaging the public and inviting them into the decision-making process. It is not clear whether Ascension or Google involved the public or patients in Project Nightingale.

The downsides

Some patients have criticized Project Nightingale because it does not have an opt-out for patients who do not want their information shared.

However, opt-out systems raise ethical concerns, too. They permit free riders who will benefit from the knowledge gained from the participants. Second, knowledge from a learning health system could be biased if enough people opt out. If so, opting out could expose others to riskier health care.

Good governance is critical to support a common good activity that conflicts with some individual interests. Transparency and accountability are crucial to keep the parties honest and open to public scrutiny. They also empower people to demand government action against an activity that cannot be ethically justified. There is little, if any, reported evidence that Project Nightingale has sufficient transparency or accountability processes. This is likely to be the biggest ethical challenge to Project Nightingale.

Issues of consent

Some of the biggest concerns have been about consent. However, public health ethics do not always require consent. One recent WHO ethical guideline says:

Individuals have an obligation to contribute when reliable, valid, complete data sets are required and relevant protection is in place. Under these circumstances, informed consent is not ethically required.

The basic argument is that individuals have a moral obligation to contribute when there is low individual risk and high population benefit.

Currently, the public does not know enough about Project Nightingale to make definitive ethical judgments. However, public health ethics likely provides some support for what Google and Ascension are trying to do. The more critical ethical issue might turn on how Google and Ascension are doing it.

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The tricky ethics of Google's Project Nightingale - EconoTimes

More than 1,500 community members gave input for the Milwaukee Blueprint for Peace, the city's violence prevention plan.(Photo: Provided photo)

Nearly $600,000 for the BUILD Health Challengewill come to the Sherman Park neighborhood, Ald. Khalif Rainey announced.

Part of the money for the project, called BUILD Sherman Park, will be used to implement recommendations from Milwaukee's Blueprint for Peace, a community-based violence prevention initiative created in 2017.

RELATED: Milwaukee encourages people to get behind 'blueprint for peace' goals

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The funds will come, in part, from an award of $250,000 won by the City of Milwaukee Health Department's Office of Violence Prevention, Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital at the St. Joseph campus, United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County and the Sherman Park Community Association. Ascension Wisconsin has pledged to provide $336,000 in matching support of the grant, bringing the total funds to $586,000.

Ascension Wisconsin officials said the health system's participation is proof of how it is committed to Milwaukee's underrepresented communities.

The BUILD Health Challenge, is a national program meant to improve community health through community and health system partnerships, according to the website. The award requires hospitals to at least match the BUILD grant and will include other tools, such as coaching, support services and specialized training. The money for BUILD Sherman Park will be distributed over the next two years.

Rainey described the investment in Sherman Park as "transformative" for its residents.

Milwaukee joins over a dozenother cities who won the national challenge for the 2019 year, including Oakland, California; Houston, Texas and Washington, D.C.

There will be a kick-off event for the BUILD Sherman Park project Tuesday, Dec. 17 at 5:30 p.m. at the Sherman Phoenix, 3536 W. Fond Du Lac Ave.

Contact Talis Shelbourne at (414) 223-5261 or tshelbourn@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @talisseerand Facebook at @talisseer.

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Nearly $600,000 to come to Sherman Park neighborhood for the BUILD Health Challenge and Ascension Wisconsin - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Saudi Arabia celebrates on Saturday the fifth anniversary of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulazizs ascension to the throne.

The Kingdom has made remarkable and unprecedented political, social, economic and development achievements since King Salman ascended the throne on January 23, 2015.

The achievements have demonstrated that the Saudi leadership is committed to its pledge to build a state for the future and to take its place among the major world powers, with all of their political, economic, scientific and social weight.

King Salmans speeches at international and local forums have emphasized the importance of national development and the need to achieve more accomplishments. He has sought to highlight the role of Saudi youth in making achievements possible, saying they are firmly forging their way forward, armed with their Islamic and Arab heritage.

He has sought to underline that Saudi Arabia is the country of Islam, from where this religion emerged, stressing that the Kingdom stands firmly with all Arab and Muslim countries as they strive for their rights.

His speeches have also underscored the importance of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which was originally formed to bolster the peace, stability, development and prosperity of the Gulf people.

Throughout his five years in power, Saudi Arabia witnessed massive development, which was recognized and praised around the world. This progress aims to achieve sustainable development that will allow the Kingdom to take its place among the worlds advanced countries.

The accomplishments are too many to count, but the most significant of them is the governments approval a year ago of the Kingdoms largest budget to date at over 2 trillion riyals and revenues of over 900 billion riyals.

The Kingdom also approved development projects and signed major deals with global companies aimed at further developing the country. It has sought to ease its dependence on oil through investing in local tourism in all of its forms with the Kingdom aiming to attract 100 million tourists annually, according to Vision 2030. To that end, Saudi Arabia inaugurated several major projects, such as the King Salman Park, Sports Boulevard, Green Riyadh, Riyadh Art and Diriyah Gate Project. King Salman also inaugurated during the holy month of Ramadan the Hajj and Umrah Program that is part of Vision 2030.

Women empowerment has also been at the forefront of Saudi achievements in recent years under King Salmans reign. The Kingdom has taken unprecedented decisions to empower women through granting them their natural right to employment, which will allow them to directly contribute to the countrys development alongside their male counterparts. Women were also allowed to drive during King Salmans reign.

King Salman grew up in the royal palace in Riyadh where he used to accompany his father at official meetings with kings and world rulers.

He received his early education at the Princes' School in Riyadh where he studied religious and modern studies. He completed reading the holy Quran, under the guidance of late Imam of the Masjid al-Haram Sheikh Abdullah Khayyat, when he was ten years old.

Since his youth, King Salman showed an interest in education and was granted several honorary degrees and awards in recognition of his efforts.

King Salman was appointed Governor of the Riyadh region in 1955 when he was 20 years old. He occupied that position for more than five decades. During that time, he transformed the capital, then of some 200,000 people, into one of the Arab worlds fastest growing capitals.

His tenure as governor was not without obstacles and challenges, but he was able to overcome them and Riyadh is now one of the wealthiest and most influential cities in the region. Moreover, King Salman has received several awards and medals in recognition of his humanitarian efforts.

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Saudi Arabia Celebrates 5th Anniversary of King Salmans Ascension of the Throne - Asharq Al-awsat English

Executive Summary

A recent agreementbetween Google and Ascension, a huge national health system, is yet another sign of how the digital revolution is transforming health care. We are at the dawn of a new era, where clinicians will be able to apply in real time the collective human experience in treating any particular problem to the care of every patient with that condition. But the critical reactions to the agreement under whichAscension will send to the Google cloud the clinical data it collects on its 50 million patients, and Google will process that data to help Ascension better manage its patients and its finances make it clear that changes of this magnitude are never smooth.The announcement generated concerns about patient privacy and the misuse of information for the private gain of third parties and triggered an investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and calls from members of Congress for further inquiries. We are obviously at the beginning of what will likely be a long, contentious, and vital debate over how to manage personal health information in the digital age.

A recent agreementbetween Google and Ascension, a huge national health system, is yet another sign of how the digital revolution is transforming health care. We are at the dawn of a new era where clinicians will be able to apply in real time the collective human experience in treating any particular problem to the care of every patient with that condition.

But the critical reactions to the agreement under whichAscension will send to the Google cloud the clinical data it collects on its 50 million patients, and Google will process that data to help Ascension better manage its patients and its finances make it clear that changes of this magnitude are never smooth.The announcement generated concerns about patient privacy and the misuse of information for the private gain of third parties. Ittriggered an investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and calls from members of Congress for further inquiries. We are obviously at the beginning of what will likely be a long, contentious, and vital debate over how to manage personal health information in the digital age.

Patients have an undeniable right to privacy and control over their personal health data. Doctors and hospitals need leeway to use patient information in their care. Patients, health professionals, and the larger society have an interest in learning from our collective experience with care to better prevent and treat disease. And tech entrepreneurs want a return on their capital when they add value to the management of health-care data. The coming debate will be about how to manage these sometimes conflicting interests as health information technology revolutionizes our health care system.

Setting the legalities aside for a moment, here are the fundamentals underlying the Ascension-Google relationship: Ascension sits on troves of data accumulated in the course of caring for millions of patients who pass through its facilities. That data used to be locked away in paper records that had to be physically transported and laboriously abstracted to serve any purpose other than the care of an individual patient at a particular place and time. As a result of the near-universal adoption of electronic health records over the last decade, all that information is now stored as electrons that can flow instantly to wherever its needed and useful, provided that patients privacy is protected.

This has several immediate benefits for patients. One is that their personal histories are always accessible when they get care at Ascension (and possibly elsewhere). Another is that Ascensions doctors and nurses can potentially learn from the experience of all Ascensions patients with similar conditions as they care for any individual patient. And by applying search technologies and artificial intelligence, Ascension may also be able in real time to mobilize lessons of the entire scientific literature to bring to bear on individual patients. That literature is so enormous that even the most experienced, specialized clinicians have difficulty keeping up with it. Ascensions experience may also inform medical research more broadly.

The challenge is that accomplishing these innovative uses of electronic data requires a range of informatics, analytics, and research skills that most health systems dont possesses. One logical approach is for health care organizations like Ascension to partner with third parties that have the necessary capabilities. Thats where Google comes in. It has IT skills including in the field of artificial intelligence that Ascension can never hope to equal. And Google has been gobbling up nationally renowned clinician leaders and researchers to create a deep bench in health-care informatics and research.

In this, Google is not alone. IBM Watson has been in this field for some time. Amazon and Apple seem to be following suit. And there are a flock of start-ups hunting for opportunities to add value to health care by mining patient data. When health care, which accounts for 18% of the U.S. economy, suddenly enters the digital age bringing almost inconceivably large stores of untapped data the business opportunities are huge. Google is reportedly not charging Ascension for its services, but that is likely because of the exploratory nature of the work that Google will be doing at this point in the developing arena of health care informatics. Future customers are unlikely to be so fortunate.

The legalities, of course, cannot be set aside for long. The Google-Ascension deal will likely expose the personal health information of millions of Ascension patients to Google employees. Doesnt this violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)? Health care providers routinely cite HIPAA as a tough, no-nonsense statute that severely inhibits their ability to share patients information with each other and even with patients themselves and their families.

Well, the fact is that HIPAA, despite its fearsome reputation, is full of holes, and lawyers for Google and Ascension likely found ample room in the law to support their agreement. For one thing, health care providers who are regulated under HIPAA, so-called covered entities, may share personal health information without patient consent for three main purposes: treatment, payment, and operations.

Treatment means that clinicians can discuss their patients with other treating clinicians without getting patients consent each time. Without this flexibility, doctors would be severely restricted in their ability to consult with colleagues for the benefit of their common patients. Payment means providers can use personal health information to get paid by insurers. And operations means that providers can use personal health information to address the critical operational needs of their organizations, including improving the quality and safety of their care. When a covered entity uses a third party to fulfill any of these purposes, that outside entity becomes a so-called business associate, and must conform to HIPAA regulations as well.

The data management activities that Google will undertake for Ascension may very well qualify as meeting Ascensions operational needs to improve the quality of its care, and Google could, in that capacity, serve as a business associate. Under this interpretation, the sharing of patient data without patient consent could be legal under HIPAA. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which enforces the HIPAA statute, is examining the relationship to see if it meets HIPAA requirements.

However, even if the relationship turns out to be technically legal, it raises significant unresolved policy issues. The lawmakers who created HIPAA never anticipated the internet, IT behemoths like Google and Apple, or the skill of hackers who seem to penetrate the most secure data systems at will. It is one thing to share a dusty old paper record with an outside entity. It is quite another to send electronic versions off into the cloud where despite a third partys best efforts it might be hacked from anywhere on earth. HIPAA is likely no longer sufficient to reassure patients that their electronic health data is adequately protected.

Another question surrounds rights to the commercial benefits likely to flow from collaborations between health care organizations and IT companies. These agreements will likely produce a bounty of intellectual property that will be profitably sold without patient information (think algorithms and software) to other health care providers and even to other businesses that develop and market health care products (think pharmaceutical and device companies and health plans). Ultimately, however, these profits will be derived from the personal health information of millions of patients who will likely have no idea of how their data have been used. Should they be given the opportunity to consent to these business uses of their data? Should they share in some small way in the gains?

These and other questions will have to be addressed to realize the individual and societal benefits of the health information revolution, and we will have to sort out the multiple conflicting interests and perspectives that arise at every inflection point in human history.

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Why Google's Move into Patient Information Is a Big Deal - Harvard Business Review

Logan Ridenour

FridayNov29,2019at3:31PM

The overall district performance score was a 92.3 for the 2018 to 2019 school year; displaying an overall 1.1 growth from the previous year.

The Ascension Public Schools Board held their regularly scheduled meeting, November 19. During the meeting they discussed their data overview for 2019 and shared administrative announcements for two new schools.

The overall district performance score was a 92.3 for the 2018 to 2019 school year; displaying an overall 1.1 growth from the previous year.

Although the graduation rate rested at an 87.5 percent in 2018, Superintendent David Alexander said they are striving to improve that score.

"We're really chasing that 90 percent," he said.

The mastery rate for Ascension Parish was 54 percent and second in Louisiana. Superintendent Alexander said they are top five in growth overall, and they have seen progress in all subgroup categories.

Among the Superintendent's comments was information regarding the groundbreaking for Sugar Mill Primary this past Friday, November 22. He also announced the new principals for both Bluff Ridge Primary and Bluff Ridge Middle School.

Rhonda Gillard will be the principal at Bluff Ridge Primary School.

"I am excited and overjoyed to be able to embark on this new adventure," she said.

The principal for the new Bluff Ridge Middle School will be Matt Monceaux.

"I know this is a tremendous task, opening a new school, but I'm really excited about it," he said.

Both Principals will begin their work following the winter holidays in January 2020.

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Ascension Public Schools announced performance growth - Weekly Citizen

A new Ascension urgent care center will open in Hartland soon.(Photo: Submitted)

Ascension Medical Group will open a new urgent care center in Hartland in early 2020.

According to a news release, the urgent care center "is part of Ascension Wisconsins multi-year, multi-pronged ambulatory strategy to create more convenient and affordable access points for its patients throughout the state." It will be located at 600 Hartbrook Dr., Suite 112.

"By providing patients with the right care, at the right place and the right time, our goal is to increase value for our patients by reducing unnecessary costs, improving the quality of care, delivering an outstanding experience and most importantly, improving the health of Wisconsins communities,"said Bernie Sherry, senior vice president atAscensionand ministry market executive atAscension Wisconsin.

Ascension said the urgent care center will be a good option forminor illnesses or injuries such as allergic reactions, when you are unable to see your primary care doctor, cuts that mightneed stitches, high fever, strep throat, sore throat/cough, flu, urinary tract infections, ear infections, pink eye andsinus or upper respiratory infections.

The Ascension Medical Group Wisconsin urgent care in Hartland will have extended hours of availability, seven days a week.

In Wisconsin, Ascension operates 24 hospital campuses, more than 100 related healthcare facilities and employs more than 1,300 primary and specialty care clinicians from Racine to Eagle River.

ContactEvan Frank at (262) 361-9138or evan.frank@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Evanfrank_LCP.

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Expect to see a new urgent care center in Hartland in early 2020 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, MD, (R-Louisiana) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) have introduced legislation to prevent data mining of Americans personal health data stored on wearable personal devices, such as smartwatches.

The bill comes amid renewed concerns of Googles plans to buy Fitbit in light of recent reports that Google has partnered with Ascension tosecretly harvestthe nonanonymized private health data of millions of Americans. The actions of Google and Ascension raise questions about how Google and other companies would use data collected from smart device users.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects all interactions between patients and their doctors. HIPAA does not protect health data recorded on personal devices.

Related:Three Things to Know About HIPAA Compliance

The Stop Marketing And Revealing the Wearables And Trackers Consumer Health Data Act (Smartwatch Data Act) defines what data is protected under the law. The bill would prevent entities that collect consumer health information from transferring, selling, sharing, or allowing access to consumer health information or any individually identifiable consumer health information collected on personal health trackers. Violations of the new act would be enforced by HHS in the same manner the department enforces HIPAA.

The Google/Ascension news has brought needed scrutiny to the security of Americans health data, Cassidy says. The Smartwatch Act prevents big tech data harvesters from collecting intimate private data without patients consent. Americans should always know their health information is secure.

The introduction of technology to our healthcare system in the form of apps and wearable health devices has brought up a number of important questions regarding data collection and privacy, Rosen says. This commonsense, bipartisan legislation will extend existing healthcare privacy protections to personal health data collected by apps and wearables, preventing this data from being sold or used commercially without the consumers consent.

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Cassidy, Rosen Bill Fixes Gap in Health Data Privacy Protections - Managed Healthcare Executive

The backers of a plan to consolidate sewer service in Ascension Parish say 29 neighborhoods outside the parish also will be part of the deal and pay its increased rates. The Ascension Parish Council would become their rate setting authority, replacing the Louisiana Public Service Commission.

WATSON Just down Cane Market Road from Watson Baptist Church, the residents of the Fountainbleau subdivision live in one of the most norther

Here they are by parish:

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East Baton Rouge

Beaver Creek, Beaver Creek on the Plains, Carriagewood Estates, Cloverhill, High Plains, Builders Center/Hobby Lobby, Hoo Shoo Too Lakes, Lake Beau Pre, Landing at Mallard Lakes, Mallard Crossing, Manchac Reserve, Pecue Lane Estates, Reserves at Jefferson Crossing, and Willowbrook/Old Jefferson.

Iberville

Oak Trace

Livingston

Cypress Point, Duff Village, Fountainbleau, Gray's Creek, Lakes at Juban Crossing, Old Mill Settlement, River Highlands No. 1, Settlement at Bayou Pierre, The Cove, The Crossing Apartments, Three River Islands, Village at Juban Lakes, Waterfront East and Waterfront West.

GONZALESAscension government advisers working on 30-year deal to transform parish sewer service say they made several changes to the propos

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See list of neighborhoods outside Ascension Parish that are part of 30-year sewer deal - The Advocate

Madison Arnold, Pensacola News Journal Published 6:00 a.m. CT Nov. 25, 2019

Ascension Sacred Heart is moving forward with a number of projects, two of which are scheduled to open in 2020, in an effort to move more services out into the community.

A new outpatient rehabilitation center is under construction at the intersection of Grande and Market Place driveswith an estimated finish in April. That project will be followed by the completion of an outpatient surgery and dermatology center, among other services, just off Summit Boulevard next November.

"We know that toprovide a patient-friendly, family-friendly experience that we need to be in the neighborhood, we need to be out in the community," saidDawn Rudolph, hospital president. "... With innovation and capabilities that we've been able to bring,more things can be done outside of the hospital."

Construction of the brand new Ascension Sacred Health outpatient service center on Summit Boulevard is underway on Friday.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

The $9.5 million rehabilitation center will be a 17,500-square-foot facility and offer physical, occupation and speech therapy. Currently, the hospital system offers those servicesat two locations one inSanta Rosa County andthe other along Davis Highway and Sorrento Road.

The surgical center will be quite a bit larger at 58,000 square feet and next to the hospital's Haven of Our Lady of Peace nursing home. The $19 million project will include six outpatient operating rooms, imaging equipment, the breast health center with mammography and a dermatology center.

When determining what services are needed and where in the community to put them, Ascension Sacred Heart staff look at data, including the number of homes in growing areas andpropensity and prevalence of particular diseases, Rudolph said.

"Those lenses allow us to know what is the highest and best used of our services and try to customize it as much as possible," Rudolph said. "How can we make it easy for people to get good health care? That's the bottom line."

Currently, the system is looking into opening a separate emergency room to accommodate growth in Beulah, although an exact timeline hasn't yet been finalized, said spokesman Mike Burke. A media release announcing the project in August said it's planned to be an $11 million,4,700-square-foot facility scheduled to open in late 2020.

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It will be constructed on Nine Mile Road, nearthe new Ascension Sacred Heart Health Center at Milestone, an outpatient medical facility that opened in March.

These facility expansions come on the heels of the hospital system's new $85 million Studer Family Children's Hospital in April opening. Now Ascension Sacred Heart is construction a $19 million pediatric intensive care unit and operating rooms onto the children's hospital, which is scheduled to be finished in January 2021.

Madison Arnold can be reached at marnold@pnj.com and 850-435-8522.

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Ascension Sacred Heart on track to open at least two new facilities in 2020 - Pensacola News Journal