The Chilton County Healthcare Authority has applied for a Certificate of Need, the granting of which will be imperative for the effort to build a new hospital in Chilton County.

The application for a 30-bed facility was filed Sept. 10 with the State Health Planning and Development Agency of Alabama. The application will now go through a review process that local officials hope will culminate with approval in December.

A hospital could not be opened without a Certificate of Need.

Sibley Reynolds with the Healthcare Authority said officials expect no opposition to the application, a fact that should expedite the process.

The application included a projected cost of $58.4 million. Reynolds said this number is higher than previous estimates given for the project because the CON application requires the cost to include a projection of the facility’s operating expenses for the first year.

A report determined 30 beds would be the optimal number for a hospital in Chilton County.

According to the report, 3,768 patients from Chilton County visited Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster from July 2009 through June 2011, or 46 percent of the Chilton County residents who sought care outside the county.

The hospital to see the second-most county residents during the time period was Brookwood Medical Center, which saw 1,121 patients, or 14 percent of Chilton County’s “outmigration.”

Also, the report determined that 92 percent of the patients seen at the now-closed Chilton Medical Center during the time period referenced above were Chilton County residents.

CMC closed in October 2012, and county voters in June approved a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase to fund the construction of a new hospital, which will be located off Highway 145 in Clanton and operated by St. Vincent’s Health System.

Reynolds said no site work would begin at the location until the CON has been granted. In the meantime, the site has been surveyed, and engineers are determining the leveling needed so bids can be sought on that work.

Site work could begin around the beginning of 2015, Reynolds said.

Hospital officials and other county leaders toured St. Vincent’s St. Clair facility on Sept. 26. The proposed Chilton facility has been compared to the hospital in Pell City.

Reynolds said St. Vincent’s officials have sought the input of employees at the St. Clair facility, so any needed changes could be made to the plans for the Chilton hospital.

“It’s top notch,” Reynolds said of the St. Clair facility. “You wouldn’t be embarrassed by any of that construction, any of that design.”