Orlando Health South Lake Hospital Opens New Patient Bed Tower

Clermont, FL (Feb. 8, 2024) – Orlando Health South Lake Hospital is opening its new five-story patient tower as an extension to the existing 147-bed acute care hospital. This addition significantly increases the hospital’s bed count, expands the intensive care unit and brings new services to the Lake County area.

“Our new patient tower stands as a symbol of our commitment to the people of Lake County,” said Lance Sewell, president of Orlando Health South Lake Hospital. “The completion of this expansion project marks a special moment in time for our hospital. This tower is a promise that we will continue to provide the highest level of care to our community and we will grow to meet its needs.”

The tower officially opens Feb. 12 and will also house the Orlando Health South Lake Hospital Center for Women and Babies and several specialty practices of the newly named Orlando Health Women’s Institute, including the Center for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Center for Urogynecology, Center for Advanced Gynecology and Minimally Invasive Surgery and an Orlando Health Cancer Institute Breast Care Center.

A few new features include:

• The addition of 88 new patient beds total
• Seven new postpartum beds and a state-of-the-art nursery, added in March 2022
• Four new labor and delivery beds
• New neonatal intensive care unit shell
• Memorial garden
• Eight additional ICU beds

The project also included the realignment of Don Wickham Drive at Legends Way and Citrus Tower Boulevard, which adds a new stoplight to improve traffic flow.

The hospital celebrated with community members, local officials and team members during a ribbon cutting on Thursday. The event also included a special dedication of a new memorial garden that honors team members who have passed away.

The hospital will hold a free community open house on Saturday, Feb. 10 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The expansion of Orlando Health South Lake was made possible in part by a $50 million grant from The Live Well Foundation of South Lake, an organization created to address healthcare needs in the community. The Live Well Foundation meets these needs by partnering with local nonprofits to provide grants for healthcare-driven initiatives and has been in partnership with Orlando Health since its founding in 2019.

“We at the Live Well Foundation have enjoyed a partnership with Orlando Health South Lake since 2019 and it’s been our shared mission to identify critical local healthcare needs and then create and fund local solutions to answer them,” said Susan McLean, grant chair for the Live Well Foundation. “We are so pleased to be able to support expanding services for the people of Lake County, who will now have even more access to top-notch healthcare and specialists right here at home.”

Recently, Orlando Health South Lake Hospital earned its 11^th consecutive ‘A’ grade from the Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety and transparency in the U.S. health system. It was also identified as a 2024 High Performing hospital for Maternity Care (Uncomplicated Pregnancy) and 2024 Maternity Care Access Hospital by U.S. News & World Report and was named as one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® according to an independent quality analysis provided by PINC AI™ and reported by Fortune.

As the trusted community hospital in south Lake County, Orlando Health South Lake Hospital has provided healthcare to residents for over 75 years. The hospital is located at 1900 Don Wickham Drive in Clermont.

About Orlando Health

Orlando Health, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is a not-for-profit healthcare organization with $9.6 billion of assets under management that serves the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico.

Founded more than 100 years ago, the healthcare system is recognized around the world for Central Florida’s only pediatric and adult Level I Trauma program as well as the only state-accredited Level II Adult Trauma Center in Pinellas County. It is the home of one of the nation’s largest neonatal intensive care units, one of the only systems in the southeast to offer open fetal surgery to repair the most severe forms of spina bifida, the site of an Olympic athlete training facility and operator of one of the largest and highest performing clinically integrated networks in the region. Orlando Health has pioneered life-changing medical research and its Graduate Medical Education program hosts more than 350 residents and fellows.

The 3,429-bed system includes 32 hospitals and emergency departments – 26 of which are currently operational with six coming soon. The system also includes nine specialty institutes, skilled nursing facilities, an in-patient behavioral health facility under the management of Acadia Healthcare, and more than 375 outpatient facilities that include physician clinics, imaging and laboratory services, wound care centers, home healthcare services in partnership with LHC Group, and urgent care centers in partnership with CareSpot Urgent Care. More than 4,950 physicians, representing more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties have privileges across the Orlando Health system, which employs more than 29,000 team members and more than 1,400 physicians.

In FY 23, Orlando Health cared for 197,000 inpatients and 6.6 million outpatients.  The healthcare system provided nearly $1.3 billion in total impact to the communities it serves in the form of community benefit programs and services, Medicare shortfalls, bad debt, community-building activities and capital investments in FY 22, the most recent period for which this information is available.

Additional information can be found at http://www.orlandohealth.com, or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @orlandohealth.