Celebration Health hits its stride after slow start.(Statistical Data Included)

CELEBRATION -- Despite its controversial -- and rather slow -- beginning, Florida Hospital's 60-bed Celebration Health has grown to healthy proportions.

And officials there predict things will only get better, as the hospital continues to open new medical programs and reach out to the international health care market.

Celebration Health became a full-fledged hospital in June 1998, but had only 983 patient admissions that year and a tiny 12 percent occupancy rate.

Things began picking up steam soon after, however, with a 49 percent occupancy rate for the first quarter of last year and a 61 percent occupancy rate for the first quarter of this year.

The number of hospital employees also has grown from 150 workers to 600, and the emergency room has kept busy with about 26,000 patients annually.

"It's a good growth pattern," says Lars Houmann, administrator of Celebration Health. "We're frequently running into our capacity of 60 beds."

It wasn't long ago, however, that …