MILFORD ­— With a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday morning, Bayhealth moved one step closer to realizing its new Milford health campus.

“With one scoop of earth, we begin a new phase of the town’s development,” said Milford Mayor Brian Shupe. “This will be a memorable day for all of us. When the health campus is complete in a few years, we can all say we were here at the beginning.”

The $300 million campus, the largest investment in Sussex County, is set to open its doors in 2019.

Bayhealth’s President and CEO Terry Murphy emphasized that the new health campus isn’t simply a move of Milford Memorial from Clark Avenue to a new location west of Del. 1. It is a total reimagining of health care as central and southern Delaware knows it, he said.

Although a three-year, $300 million project may seem excessive, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell said the new facility’s approach to health care will cut back on future costs.

“The trajectory of health care cost is not sustainable. We can pretend it is, but it just isn’t,” he said. “The new approach to health care you see here with Bayhealth, Nemours and other hospitals across the state focus more and more on the quality of outcome and keeping people well rather than doing more and more procedures and keeping people in the hospital longer.”

One of the goals of the new Milford health campus will be to turn away from the typical fee for service health care model and move toward that focuses on payment for keeping people well.

“What happens here is going to be the center of this change,” Gov. Markell said. “Our job is to do everything we can to support this kind of venture.”

The facility will not only have the typical emergency department, outpatient and inpatient services, it will be a one-stop-shop for state-of-the art diagnostics and treatments and specialists in various areas including pediatrics.

Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children is one of Bayhealth Milford’s partners, having signed on to provide top-tier pediatric services close to home.

“We see patients driving an hour and a half for a 10-minute follow-up and that’s never seemed right to me,” said Dr. Roy Proujanksy, executive vice president of Nemours. “We need to optimize the time we spend with patients and reduce the amount of time it takes to get there.”

The wide range of services provided by Bayhealth Milford is also expected to be a selling point to prospective residents who can be assured the best health care possible can be provided right in their own town.

“People won’t have to travel to Baltimore or Philadelphia anymore to receive treatment,” Mr. Shupe said. “It will not only appeal to those looking to move here but it will also be a draw for nurses and physicians too.”

He went on to say the new 165-acre health campus will serve as a catalyst for economic growth in the area.

The new health campus won’t only benefit the Milford area when it opens; half of the facility’s contractors are Delaware based and the project will employ 1,850 individuals during its construction.

For more information about the new Milford health campus, visit imaginede.com.