GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — A local group of 60 doctors has retained two firms to help advance its plans for a new hospital in Grand Island.

The firms are helping the doctors determine which operational, technological and environmental platforms would be needed for the new hospital. Preliminary plans call for the facility to open with 40 to 50 beds.

The group announced last June that it wanted to open a second hospital in the south-central Nebraska community and that the project would take at least two years to finish. Representatives said they wanted a hospital that would be controlled locally rather than answer to a central authority or ownership elsewhere.

St. Francis hospital in Grand Island is part of the CHI Health system.