Health Care
The headline screamed, “She’s a Cutie,” announcing the miraculous birth of Elizabeth Carr at what was then Norfolk General Hospital. It was December 1981, and that 5-pound, 12-ounce product of a Petri dish put Hampton Roads on the medical map.
Carr was America’s first test tube baby and the 15th in-vitro baby ever born. Her parents, Judith and Roger Carr, had been unable to conceive naturally and decided to leave the prestigious hospitals in their native Massachusetts and take their chances with the pioneering Drs. Howard and Georgeana Jones at Eastern Virginia Medical School’s new in-vitro program.
The Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at EVMS has been going strong since. It now helps bring 3,500 babies a year into the world using cutting edge research and processes developed in their Norfolk campus.
EVMS has gone on to branch out to pioneering work in proteomics, the manipulation of proteins to identify and cure diseases as diverse as cancer and diabetes. It’s also a giant in prostate cancer identification and treatment.
Hampton Roads is home to nationally certified cancer, diabetes, and heart centers. And there’s an entire parallel medical world at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth and other clinics that see people in uniform, their families, and retirees, with a separate Veterans Administration medical center in Hampton.
If treatments aren’t available here, you’re an easy jump to the medical centers in Charlottesville and Richmond or the Research Triangle region in North Carolina. Bottom line, if you’re here, health care options really aren’t a concern.
And if you need a transplant, LifeNet Health, one of the nation’s biggest suppliers of such tissue, is based right here in Virginia Beach. You’ll still have to get on the national waiting lists for an organ, but it’s nice to know they might not have to fly it very far before your surgeon gets to use it.
City: Hampton Roads, VA
Category: Health Care
2. Sentara Healthcare
City: Hampton Roads, VA
Category: Health Care
Description: Sentara is the region’s largest health care provider, operating six hospitals as well as a number of physician practices, seven nursing centers, three assisted living centers, and an adult day care center as well as several advanced imaging centers in the area. In all, Sentara operates more than 100 medical care sites, here and in Williamsburg and Woodbridge, VA.Sentara hospitals have been listed among America’s best in heart and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrine disorders, geriatric care, kidney disorders, and orthopedics. It operates the area’s air ambulance, “Nightingale,” and the region’s solid organ transplant center, which performs heart, kidney, pancreas, and combined kidney/pancreas transplants.This giant began in 1888 with a 25-bed Retreat for the Sick in Norfolk.
3. Norfolk Naval Shipyard
City: Hampton Roads, VA
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (757) 953-6470
Description: This company has 8 of its 26 centers in Hampton Roads, each open every day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., including weekends and holidays. No appointments are necessary and x-rays, lab tests, and prescription medications are provided on site. Most insurance plans work with Patient First, but you might want to check if you are covered. For a complete list of locations in your area, visit the website above.
4. Patient First
City: Hampton Roads, VA
Category: Health Care
Description: This company has 8 of its 26 centers in Hampton Roads, each open every day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., including weekends and holidays. No appointments are necessary and x-rays, lab tests, and prescription medications are provided on site. Most insurance plans work with Patient First, but you might want to check if you are covered. For a complete list of locations in your area, visit the website above.
5. East End Health Facility
City: Hampton Roads, VA
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (757) 247-2184
Description: In Virginia, the state has community services boards that are in business to provide behavioral health care and services for individuals and families affected by intellectual and developmental disabilities.
6. Anthem Blue Cross And Blue Shield
City: Hampton Roads, VA
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (800) 304-0372
Description: Anthem is the name of the Blue Cross plans in Hampton Roads, and it provides a variety of insurance plans, including HMOs and temporary bridge protection to individuals and employers. The website also has a tool to find a doctor that takes their insurance.
7. Optima Health
City: Hampton Roads, VA
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (800) 741-4825
Description: This is a large local provider affiliated with the Sentara Health network that offers a variety of health insurance coverage through employers or to individuals. There are plans that are fully managed and others with more control and choice of provider by the individual.