With Davis Islands expansion approved, Tampa General Hospital sets sights on becoming a statewide health system
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Dec 11, 2023

Tampa General Hospital is moving forward with a major expansion of its Davis Islands campus — the crown jewel of what CEO John Couris envisions becoming a statewide academic health system.

In the last month, TGH has announced the acquisition of Bravera Health, adding three hospitals, one freestanding emergency room, two ambulatory care centers and 10 primary and specialty care clinics to its network. Those properties have all been rebranded under the TGH North umbrella. It also signed a deal to expand in Babcock Ranch, a master-planned community that spans 18,000 acres across southeastern Charlotte and northeastern Lee counties.

TGH North and the Babcock Ranch location — which will launch with an urgent care facility — will act as feeders for the Davis Islands hospital, but only to an extent, Couris said.

TGH and the University of South Florida's Morsani College of Medicine are fully clinically integrated. In 2020, the two entities formalized their relationship as an academic medical center.

"Rare and complex work like transplants should go to a big regional academic medical center like ours, but a lot of the care — quite frankly, most of the care — can and should be done in the local community," Couris told the Tampa Bay Business Journal. "We want the high-end, complex work, but we also want to build infrastructure in these communities so people don't have to leave to get health care. If you need a hip replacement or a knee operation, you'd want to stay in your local community."

Between TGH North, the Davis Islands campus and Babcock Ranch, the health system has a presence along much of Florida's West Coast. On the East Coast, it has a presence in Palm Beach and Martin counties. One notable geographic gap? Northeast and North Central Florida, where the University of Florida Health is a major provider.

Would Couris go head-to-head with UF? Not right now, he says. But maybe.

"We have a very friendly and collegial relationship with UF, and we have a lot of respect for the work they do," he said. "But candidly, I'm a free market person. If it's well-balanced and managed — in health care, competition can be a good thing."

Couris said TGH's future growth strategy will look a lot like the Bravera Health acquisition. Building new hospitals doesn't make sense, he said, when the average hospital occupancy rate across the state is between 55% and 65%.

"There are places in the state that probably need some new hospitals and probably need some capacity, but most of the state of Florida is overbedded," he said. "Our problem isn't capacity. It's actually doing better with what we have."

In Tampa, TGH's new freestanding emergency department on Kennedy Boulevard has been open since July. It currently treats 45 to 55 patients per day. The Davis Islands ER, Couris said, has already seen a shift of less-acute patients seeking care at the Kennedy campus, though the Kennedy ER hasn't yet been marketed that way.

"That allows us to free up capacity in our Level One trauma center to actually take care of patients who need a Level One trauma center," he said. "We are also seeing net new patients coming to our facility there [on Kennedy]. So those are the two drivers behind that."