Marking the latest step in its international expansion, Cleveland Clinic today opened a new, private 184-bed hospital in London across the street from the Buckingham Palace Garden.
Cleveland Clinic is making a big bet that British and European patients will seek care at a hospital with brand recognition and one that will provide comprehensive medical and surgical services, focusing on cardiovascular, digestive, neurological and orthopedic specialties. The hospital does not offer emergency services.
Media reports peg the price tag for the eight-story, 325,000-square foot hospital at $1 billion. The London hospital will provide care to eligible members covered through all major domestic and international insurers, self-pay and embassy-sponsored patients, according to executives.
The new hospital is an addition to a London outpatient facility opened in 2021 and is part of an international footprint that includes facilities in Toronto and a 394-bed hospital in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
"London is a leading hub of healthcare for the world. We specifically chose London to bring the best of what we do and integrate it with the best of U.K. healthcare," Brian Donley, M.D., CEO of Cleveland Clinic London, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview in February 2020. "We want to showcase our model and as that model continues to evolve, we will spread that over our globally integrated network."
By opening a hospital in the U.K., Cleveland Clinic is bringing together London’s world-renowned physicians and research with Cleveland Clinic’s 100-year history of technological advances and clinical expertise, Donley said in a statement.
The hospital will focus on complex interventional care, he said. "We are bringing our focus on transparency, innovation and teamwork into this market. We're also bringing our strong physician governance focus," he said.
The new hospital will follow the model of care set by the U.S.-based Cleveland Clinic brand as a physician-led group with almost all of its senior leadership positions occupied by doctors. The hospital also complements Cleveland Clinic’s existing outpatient facility in London, at Portland Place.
The London hospital was slated to open in January 2021, a few months later than the original opening date of late 2020. Pandemic-related construction delays then pushed the opening to early 2022.
The hospital, located at 33 Grosvenor Place in central London, has 29 ICU beds and eight operating theaters, a 41-bed neurological rehabilitation ward and a staff of approximately 1,150 clinicians.
“For more than 100 years, Cleveland Clinic has been at the forefront of medical innovation and specialized health care,” said Cleveland Clinic CEO and President Tom Mihaljevic, M.D., in a statement. “We believe that touching more lives is our ethical imperative. With the opening of Cleveland Clinic London, we are extending our unique model of care to more patients than ever.”
The hospital will use the latest medical and surgical technology including pharmacy barcoding and robot-powered medicine administration tracking, laser and robotic surgery capabilities and advanced electronic medical records. Cleveland Clinic London will offer the most advanced minimally invasive procedures, such as transcatheter aortic valve implantations, executives said.
It will be one of the first private hospitals in the U.K. that can conduct intraoperative imaging for brain and spinal cord disorders, a leading tool in preventing re-operations. The hospital is also equipped with a 41-bed neuro-rehabilitation suite with technologically advanced robotic equipment.
Cleveland Clinic joins a number of other U.S. health systems expanding into international markets as they look for new sources of revenue. Pittsburgh-based nonprofit system UPMC operates an organ transplant program in Palermo, Italy, and owns a cancer center in Ireland and has acquired hospitals in that country.
Johns Hopkins Medicine International, a for-profit venture jointly owned by Johns Hopkins Medicine and Johns Hopkins University, has affiliations with hospitals and health systems in 13 countries, including Vietnam, China, Turkey, Lebanon, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Finance experts temper expectations that operations of overseas hospitals will have a major bearing on a system’s balance sheet, Jordan Rau with Kaiser Health News reported. Cleveland Clinic has warned bondholders that its performance could suffer if its London project does not launch as planned, Rau reported.
Cleveland Clinic Health System more than tripled its operating income during 2021, with $746.2 million in annual operating income for the year ended Dec. 31, 2021, up from the prior year’s $232.4 million as well as 2019’s $390.2 million. Total revenue for the year landed at $12.4 billion, beating out 2020’s $10.6 billion in large part due to greater net patient service revenue.
In a late January “State of the Clinic” previewing the results, Mihaljevic told employees that Cleveland Clinic “served more patients than ever" in 2021, yielding "our finest financial performance, remarkably, during the pandemic.”
Cleveland Clinic London will report data and outcomes to key U.K. national registries. The hospital will publish detailed information on its treatment outcomes, with the goal of helping existing and future patients make informed decisions about their care options, according to executives.
The health system worked with architecture firm PLP Architecture to extensively renovate and redesign the building, originally built in the 1950s as the headquarters for an energy company.
With an eye toward sustainability, Cleveland Clinic prioritized reducing the facility’s environmental impact during the renovation process, with 98% of the original building’s materials recycled. As a result, 33 Grosvenor Place will produce some of its own heat and power through a combined heat and power plant to significantly reduce carbon emissions, according to executives.