HCA wants to develop a $9.1 million emergency department on the site of its failed Spring Hill hospital project.

In a Certificate of Need application filed today with the Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency, the Nashville hospital company describes plans for a “Centennial Medical Center Emergency Department at Spring Hill” – a 9,600-square-foot facility that would operate under Centennial Medical Center’s license as an extension of the Nashville hospital’s emergency department.

The plan calls for building a two-story, 34,000-square-foot medical office building on the property HCA acquired in 2006 to build the 56-bed Spring Hill Hospital. From that site at Saturn Parkway and Kedron Road, it plans to operate the ED out of about 7,000 square feet of leased space on the building’s first floor. The project would include eight treatment rooms plus supporting CT, ultrasound, lab and X-ray services.

Much like its argument for the Spring Hill Hospital, HCA’s application says the emergency department is needed because population growth in the region has created demand for services closer to residents in the Spring Hill and Thompson Station areas than those at Williamson Medical Center and Maury Regional Hospital.

“Patients seeking an emergency facility to assess and treat their conditions would doubtless prefer quicker access to that care, judging from statements made by local residents in the 2006 hearings on a hospital in Spring Hill,” the application states.

HCA gave up on plans to build a hospital in Spring Hill late last year after opposition from competing facilities like Williamson Medical and Maury Regional led the Davidson County Chancery Court to overturn the CON HCA had received more than three years prior.

Robert Otwell, CEO of Maury Regional, said in a statement that his team will review HCA's application before deciding on any action. Maury Regional opened a primary care clinic in Spring Hill in 1998.

A spokeswoman for Williamson Medical Center said the hospital also is reviewing the application and it has not yet decided whether it will oppose the project.

HCA's planned satellite facility would offer only emergency services, targeting a six-ZIP-code service area in Maury and Williamson counties – including Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station, the northern sector of the Columbia ZIP code and parts of the Santa Fe, Franklin and College Grove codes.

If the CON is approved this year, the ED would open by the start of 2013. The application estimates a total of 8,161 visits – an average of 22 per day – in its second year of operation.