Healthcare: Local entrepreneur plans new medical facility
Fort Worth may soon be home to a medical research facility that would add as many as 300 jobs to the local economy.
Fred Kimble, founder and CEO of MobiMed Technologies LLC, has applied for $10 million in federal stimulus funds to build a 150,000-square-foot project encompassing an 80-unit assisted living facility and a center for excellence featuring an advanced school for nursing and medical engineering. Medical office space will be available to lease while five acres on the site are set aside for a veteran’s memorial park.
Research and development at the medical facility will focus on spinal cord injuries, according to Kimble.
“We plan to teach the best protocols in nursing and in engineering,” Kimble said. “Our research specialty will be in spinal cord injuries. We want to help those injured, whether it’s victims of a car accident or returning veterans.”
The overall price tag for the project is $45 million, said Kimble, who added that the remaining $35 million already has been committed.
He expects to know if he’s been approved for the $10 million grant within 30 days to 60 days.
Once approved, the project could break ground this fall and be completed and open by fall of 2010.
A native of Mansfield, Kimble has a background in electronics warfare for the military and leading edge technologies for the medical field. Formerly a director of advanced technologies and business development for Lockheed Martin Corp. and Siemens USA, Kimble launched MobiMed Technologies in 2005. A provider of next generation medical solutions, MobiMed has created self-contained, plug-in telemedicine kiosks featuring non-invasive testing equipment interfaced with patient information software. The company is establishing a vast physician network to provide video consultations to patients using the kiosks.
Kimble also owns and operates a Visiting Angels home health care franchise and Veterans Home Care of Texas LLC, which combines helping veterans or their surviving spouses file for financial benefits as well as assisting them with their own personal care.
Kimble and his wife, Jolyeane, are a client at nonprofit business incubator TECH Fort Worth, a public-private partnership of the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, the city of Fort Worth and the local business community.
Kimble said he expects as many as 300 new jobs to be created from the project, including nurses, therapists, teachers and business managers.
“It’s all done because of what the city has done to stimulate this company to incubate and grow,” Kimble said. “It’s an opportunity to give back to the community and to help people find jobs and careers.”
This summer, Kimble has employed about 20 students using federal stimulus funds under the Summer Youth Program through the Texas Workforce Commission. High school and college students are receiving paid work experience, combined with work-based learning and work readiness training.
Several of Kimble’s students are working with assisted living facilities, others with homeless veterans, two on the telemedicine side of his business and five in his new call center located in TECH Fort Worth’s Guinn building. In the call center, the students are talking to veterans about their health care and helping them file their claims and benefits with the Veteran’s Administration for pension and health care.
“This is giving me some experience I might not have had,” said Alexandria Simpson, a field representative in the youth program. She began studying this semester for a degree in occupational therapy at Tarrant County College.
Jim Rodela, 17, a call service representative and a junior at Brewer High School, plans to become an attorney.
“I’m enjoying talking to older people and helping veterans,” Rodela said. “This job is really going to help me for my future.”
by BY BETTY DILLARD for the Fort Worth Business Press
