| A new free-standing emergency room, announced yesterday by MediCorp Health System, may mean improved service and greater choice for residents of Spotsylvania County.
MediCorp officials said they will place the new ER in the Lee's Hill Corporate Center, a retail/office development off U.S. 1, north of Massaponax.
"We have realized over the years that it was important for us to get out to where the people are," said Walt Kiwall, executive vice president and chief operating officer for MediCorp.
MediCorp also operates Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg and is building a new hospital near the Stafford County Courthouse.
The free-standing ER will be two miles from another proposed emergency room, in the future Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center.
HCA, the national hospital chain, has received a state permit to build the Spotsylvania hospital but has not started construction.
"As we said all along, competition fosters innovation and improves quality," Mark Foust, an HCA spokesman, said yesterday. "The public and patients are the winners when this kind of a thing happens."
MediCorp's new ER is expected to open by the fall of 2008, one year ahead of HCA's opening.
"There's plenty of patients for everyone," Kiwall said. "I think it's going to take all of us to meet the need."
MediCorp's free-standing ER will be similar to those operated by hospitals in Northern Virginia and Virginia Beach. It will be open 24/7 and capable of receiving walk-in patients or those who arrive by ambulance.
It will be operated as an extension of Mary Washington's emergency department and under its license. It will have the same records system, accept the same insurance plans, and be staffed by the same ER physicians' group, the Fredericksburg Emergency Medical Alliance, Kiwall said.
MediCorp will not need a state certificate of public need, or COPN, to open the new ER. It will cost about $3.5 million, below the $5 million amount that makes a certificate mandatory, Kiwall said.
The ER will occupy about 11,500 square feet of leased space in an addition to an existing building owned by Healthtech Resources, a group of local radiologists. MediCorp already has an imaging center, laboratory and rehabilitation unit in that building.
MediCorp officials were cautious in predicting whether the new ER will relieve Mary Washington's ER. They fear that the region's increasing population will offset any relief that comes from the new ER.
The existing ER is projected to have 100,000 patient visits this year, making it one of the busiest in the state, Kiwall said.
"We're looking at a way to efficiently unload some of these patients closer to their home without compromising their care, " said Dr. Drew Garvie, medical director for the emergency room.
Officials also hope that patients in the free-standing ER will be treated faster than those in the hospital-based ER.
In the hospital, ER patients compete with patients from elsewhere in the hospital, such as the intensive-care unit, to get tests done.
Also, a patient in the hospital ER may have to wait while a patient with more severe injuries is being treated. Patients with severe injuries are less likely to be treated at the free-standing ER.
Newsroom librarian Craig Schulin contributed to this story. |
