BURBANK : Doctors Purchase Medical Center

A group of physicians have purchased Thompson Memorial Medical Center in Burbank for an undisclosed amount of money from the nonprofit foundation that owned and operated it for decades.

The multimillion-dollar deal, which becomes final today, enables the physicians to obtain complete control of the hospital buildings they had been leasing since 1991.

“There’s a tremendous amount of space to add additional hospital wings, surgical centers and expand the facilities, and now that they own the property they can do so as they desire,” said Robert N. Jensen Jr., executive director of Burbank Community Hospital Foundation, which sold the site.

Thompson Memorial was previously known as Burbank Community Hospital. It opened in 1907 as a 16-bed facility and was founded by Dr. Elmer H. Thompson, who made house calls by bicycle and horseback.

The Burbank Community Hospital Foundation, a 15-member board of trustees, owned and operated the hospital for about 70 years.

In 1991, a group of more than 60 physicians began leasing the buildings, purchased the hospital’s equipment and supplies and renamed the site Thompson Memorial Medical Center.

Many of the doctors involved in the deal, such as Chief of Staff Joseph Turcillo, work at Thompson Memorial.

Hospital and foundation officials say that the sale will probably improve service for patients but that it will make little difference to employees.

“I would think that it is the physicians involved who can best determine quality-of-care issues,” Turcillo said. “It’s not an administrator far away . . . You’re not some unknown, separate corporate entity that owns these hospitals.”