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Ascension St. Vincent has closed a small “neighborhood hospital” in Noblesville, just five years after opening it as the first in a new model of tiny hospitals around central Indiana.
Workers took down signs Thursday afternoon from exterior of the building at 9460 E. 146th St. Officials at Indianapolis-based Ascension St. Vincent confirmed the closing in a brief email to IBJ, but did not say why it decided to shutter the facility.
The move comes as the health system this week also closed 11 immediate centers, which are walk-in clinics for non-life-threatening injuries and illnesses, such as sprains, cuts, allergies and pink eye.
In recent months, Ascension St. Vincent has transformed four other small neighborhood hospitals in Indianapolis, Avon and Plainfield into freestanding emergency rooms with no inpatient beds.
All the moves suggest a reshuffling is under way in Ascension St. Vincent’s huge network of hospitals, clinics and offices.
The health system opened the tiny Noblesville hospital in July 2017, hailing it as a new model of convenience, located on a busy commercial corridor on the edge of a neighborhood, and measuring only about the size of an Aldi grocery store, rather than the sprawling, traditional hospital, set back hundreds of feet from the road.
“Health care is evolving,” Jonathan Nalli, CEO of Ascension St. Vincent, said during an open house in 2017. “Patients want convenience.”
But the tiny hospitals—equipped with imaging, pharmacy and lab services under one roof—were slow to catch on with the public. The so-called micro-hospitals were derided by some critics as glorified emergency rooms.
The health system did not issue an announcement when the hospital treated its last patient and closed its doors on Thursday.
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Sad to see but totally predictable. Would have loved to seen the financials that pointed to this as a good idea. Wonder if anyone will be held accountable for the the debacle that is ‘neighborhood’ hospitals…
Very sad to see it go. Great place and staff.
I’m not sure if this was true or not, but I was told or read that these hospitals despite being convenient were considered “out of network” by most insurance companies so that would have kept me away even if I had an emergency.
It seems like they should have been urgent care facilities like Medcheck with some additional services offered closer than visiting 86th street or Carmel. Instead you are billed as an er visit.
Took daughter there on recommendation from her doctor for cold/infection saying it was a med-check type place. Got stuck with a $1000+ hospital bill!