Memorial Hospital Expands Facility and Staff To Meet Changing Needs
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With an expanded ambulatory surgery center and an ongoing drive to recruit new physicians‚ Memorial Hospital is working to ensure residents’ good health now and well into the future.
Visitors to the hospital certainly will notice one physical expansion – a $5.8 million project that opened in early 2007 and doubled the ambulatory surgery center’s size to 22‚888 square feet. The overhaul added two operating suites‚ a recovery room‚ two endoscopy suites and 20 holding bays. This gives the area eight surgical suites – one of which specifically is for orthopedics – and four endoscopy suites. In addition‚ the hospital is adding an additional cardiac catheter lab‚ doubling its capacity for that growing service‚ and also has added a second MRI machine‚ says Darren Aaron‚ director of physician services.
“We’ve been building onto our cath labs and have added a 64-slice CT scanner as well‚” Aaron says. “Cardiology has been a direction that we’ve definitely seen a need to grow in. A lot of our patients have diabetes and heart problems such as hypertension and congestive heart failure‚ so we needed to expand those services.”
Altogether‚ $40 million in physical improvements and equipment upgrades have been made to the hospital since Providence Healthcare purchased it in 2002. Providence was then acquired by LifePoint‚ which now operates the facility.
Major items included the new CT scanner‚ which cost $1.8 million‚ and a picture archiving and communications system that allows surgeons to project X-rays‚ CT scans and other images on monitors and a plasma screen in the new orthopedics surgery suite.
The enhancements were necessary to bring Memorial‚ built in 1968‚ up to speed‚ Aaron says‚ as well as to improve the hospital’s ability to recruit new physicians to the area.
“We’ve been working to find the right physicians to bring here‚ and in many ways have been building our new services around those doctors‚” he says. “We work with primary-care doctors in the area who feed referrals to us‚ and so we’ve been getting together with them monthly to talk about not only what we’re doing‚ but also what’s needed and what they would like to see us do. We’re not adding new equipment and services just to put a notch on our belt‚ but to improve outcomes for patients.”
The hospital helped bring 15 new physicians into the Henry County region in 2006. Once the new doctors arrive‚ Aaron and other staff members work with them to make sure they know what services are available at Memorial so they can build their practices.
“So many patients in this area were having to go to Winston-Salem or Duke University to get a lot of services‚ and we wanted to be able to offer them the convenience of coming here‚” he says. “We’re working with these new doctors to build their practices and refer people over to us‚ so we’re making sure Memorial is living up to its end of the deal. We have a dynamic hospital that has been changing a lot‚ and we want to make sure people know that.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Ian Curcio
