Saturday, June 06, 2015
Planning is underway to break ground later this year on the $49 million second phase of Novant Health Clemmons Medical Center that will include the addition of hospital beds at the west Forsyth facility.
The movement forward comes two years after the $27.7 million 40,000-square-foot medical center opened with an emergency department, operating rooms and an imaging suite.
This next phase will include up to 50 hospital beds, along with the necessary infrastructure to support an acute care hospital, such as food service, said David Park, a senior vice president with Novant who oversees construction and facilities services.
The expansion will include up to three new operating rooms, with new surgical services will focus on orthopedic care, including joint replacements
"The building will aesthetically tie into the existing structure," Parks said Thursday. "We're in design right now, but the intent is to end up with a full-service hospital out there."
Novant has selected BBH Design of Raleigh as the architect for the project, but has not yet finalized the design and selected a contractor.
While there will be some design similarities to Kernersville Medical Center, the addition will reflect changes that have occurred in health care in recent years to make facilities more patient-focused, Park said.
"There will be some similarities, but there will be more differences than there are similarities," Park said.
He noted that Kernersville Medical Center was based on the design of Huntersville Medical Center north of Charlotte, a design that's now more than 10 years old. The design will be closer to Novant's Haymarket Medical Center in northern Virginia, which opened in March 2014.
"If you look at the evolution of health care over the last 20 years, it's been focused on different elements within the hospital," Park said. "All the focus now is on the patient."
That means a room designed with the patient in mind, that allows nurses to spend more time with the patient and "less time hunting around for things," Park said.
"From our perspective, we're working on functionality and flow," he said.
One of the changes in health care has been the increased emphasis on reducing hospitalizations, which has sent inpatient admissions down at hospitals in the Triad and beyond.
Asked how that trend impacts Novant's planning, Park said the system is still working to determine exactly how many beds Clemmons Medical Center would have.
"I think the whole bed issue is one that every health care organization is trying to get its arms around," Park said. "I don't know 50 is what our final number will be, but it will be based on what we feel the needs of that community are."
What gave rise to Clemmons Medical Center was the determination that the surrounding area was being underserved, and needed 100 additional hospital beds.
That determination by the state nearly a decade ago gave rise to competing plans for 100-bed hospitals from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and Novant Health.
The dispute over which system should be allowed to build the hospital resulted in a 2009 agreement between the two, approved by the state, under which Novant would build a hospital in Clemmons and Wake Forest Baptist would build one in nearby Bermuda Run, with neither having more than 50 beds or opening for service before 2017.
Park said the timeline for construction has not been finalized, but the next phase should take 18 to 20 months to build.
One advantage Novant has as it undertakes the project, which could end up costing as much as $50 million, is that it is also building a new orthopedic hospital at its Presbyterian Medical Center campus in Charlotte as well as one in Mint Hill, Park said.
"We are working right now on at how we can consolidate equipment needs, elevator needs, HVAC, steel to take advantage of bulk ordering to maximize our buying power," Parks said.
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