Columbia Pacific Management – one of the largest healthcare providers in Asia – is bringing its international expertise to the China hospital market.
The Seattle-based firm’s new China hospital arm, Columbia China, will start construction next year on two 250-bed multi-specialty hospitals, in Wuxi and Changzhou, and is actively pursuing other hospital opportunities through acquisitions and greenfield projects.
Columbia Pacific has been operating in Asia for 20 years and will be one of the first foreign companies to build hospitals in China. The company is planning a significant expansion in China, similar to the network of hospitals the company owns in India and Southeast Asia through another affiliate, Columbia Asia.
To further bolster its presence in China as the hospitals are built, Columbia Pacific will also open several multi-specialty and specialty outpatient clinics under the Columbia China name. The first clinic, the Columbia China United Plaza Clinic, will open this month in Shanghai’s central Puxi District. The 10,000-square-foot multi-specialty clinic will provide internal medicine, paediatrics, rehabilitation and traditional Chinese medicine.
Columbia Pacific is focusing on large cities in China with hospitals and clinics designed to serve the wide-ranging medical needs of the country’s fast-growing middle class.
Columbia Pacific has strong ties to China. In 2011 the firm’s China senior care affiliate, Cascade Healthcare, became the first foreign-owned company to receive permission from the Chinese government to build senior care facilities in China and now has facilities in Beijing and Shanghai. Earlier this year, Cascade Healthcare opened its third senior care facility, a 78-bed community in the Pudong District of Shanghai.
“Columbia Pacific has the rare distinction of delivering healthcare services in markets serving more than half of the world’s population, with our investments in both hospitals and senior care across Asia,” says Nate McLemore, the managing director of Columbia Pacific Management. “We look forward to increasing our level of investment in China and elsewhere in Asia.”
The 250-bed hospitals in Wuxi and Changzhou are greenfield projects advancing through the permitting process, and both are expected to open by early 2018.
To foster the advent of the new Columbia China hospitals and clinics, Columbia Pacific recently hired Bee Lan Tan to serve as CEO of all of the firm’s healthcare operations in China. Tan previously oversaw hospital operations and development in China for Parkway Pantai, part of the IHH Healthcare Berhad Group, one of Asia’s largest hospital companies.
