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Building out is cheaper than building up. There are still hundreds of acres of undeveloped land in close proximity to the hospital. Only when it becomes cheaper to build up than out, will they begin to do that. They can also continue to move parking lots and building on them. You'll be able to tell when they start running out of land. They'll start building multi-level parking decks.
I know it won't factor into building up or out, but it can get tough/annoying to walk from one end to another. Going from Rehab to ECHI is over 3/10 of a mile. Add in pushing a stretcher or something. Compared to WakeMed, where everything is built up and more compact.
Building out is cheaper than building up. There are still hundreds of acres of undeveloped land in close proximity to the hospital. Only when it becomes cheaper to build up than out, will they begin to do that. They can also continue to move parking lots and building on them. You'll be able to tell when they start running out of land. They'll start building multi-level parking decks.
Yes that is very true but I do not believe that the recent hospital expansions have followed this strategy. When the main hospital was built and when it started growing they did not have a need to or the reason to build up but now it does make more sense to spend lots of money on building a taller building. Building taller does not take up as much land and minimizes the number of existing buildings to be demolished. Now that the hospital has proven that it is a major regional hospital and it has proven that it can provide the best care possible, there is no need for them to take the cheap route anymore. They know that they are just going to continue to grow and they are planning for the future. One of the big problems with Vidant though is that all of its facillities are so spread out that there are many long hallways and it takes a long time to go from one part to another.
There actually is not that much land nearby that could be used for the main hospital to expand because much of the land behind the hospital is owned by ECU and there are many schools over there and the only available land would not be able to be connected to the current hospital. If they are thinking about the future then they would not spend millions to expand by building out. So that is just my reason in thinking that they will be building up instead of building out in their next main expansion. You don't build two brand new buildings right beside the main hospital (which look WAY better then the old part) without planning to expand the main hospital sometime soon.
Status:
"48 years in MD, 18 in NC"
(set 15 days ago)
Location: Greenville, NC
2,309 posts, read 6,105,617 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBojangles
Going from Rehab to ECHI is over 3/10 of a mile.
As more specialized facilities are added they will add more labs and operating rooms for those specific specialties. The ECHI is a good example. It is self contained for the most part, with no need to move patients to different parts of the campus for treatment.
As more specialized facilities are added they will add more labs and operating rooms for those specific specialties. The ECHI is a good example. It is self contained for the most part, with no need to move patients to different parts of the campus for treatment.
Which is exactly my point in saying that they will start to build up and not keep spreading out all their facilities by building out.
The DR story on the potential closing and privatization of the Walter B. Jones Treatment Center:
Local legislators had mixed reactions on Tuesday to the state Senate's budget proposal to close and privatize the Walter B. Jones Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Center.
Sen. Louis Pate, R-Wayne, voted with the majority for a bill proposing to close the state's three substance abuse treatment centers and allow private operators to contract their services. Sen. Don Davis, D-Greene, voted against the proposal.
After reviewing reports he received from Health and Human Services Department and Senate staff who visited the three sites, including centers at Black Mountain and Butner, Pate said he did not see enough long-term benefits to justify the state's expenditures.
Davis said he had two main concerns about privatizing the Jones center.
"First, I want to be sure that our residents in need of treatment get the best quality care available, and the Walter B. Jones center has had a tremendous history of results," Davis said. "I also am concerned about the ripple effect of displacing so many of our workers and their families."
Pate said he had concerns about the facility's patient recidivism rate.
"While I do believe they offer positive services to their clients, the recidivism rate is not where it should be," Pate said. "Private community services show that they do a better job; that's part of our decision."
Serving indigent patients
With the proposal now in the House, Rep. Brian Brown, R-Pitt, disagreed with Pate's assessment of recidivism at the center.
"The recidivism rate is less than three percent, so I humbly disagree with Mr. Pate based on the information I received first-hand while there," Brown said.
Brown, Rep. Justin Burr, R-Montgomery, and a member of Speaker Thom Tillis' staff toured the center on Friday for a closer look at its services and its effect on patients' lives.
Brown said the Senate's proposal would be "a mistake" and said the three centers need to be open and viable into the future.
"With about 83 percent of their patients being indigent, I can't stress enough how valuable the center is for dealing with this portion of the population," Brown said. "The state's ADATCs play a very vital role in acute substance abuse and mental health care and operate at a fraction of the cost of using emergency rooms and whatever other mental health facilities are available to people in need."
"They do amazing things there," Brown said. "They also bring in pregnant women and even allow addicted mothers with young children to overcome their addictions without having to break the bonds they have with their children."
Dr. Gary Leonhardt, medical director of the private nonprofit PORT Human Services Ames Center, an outpatient drug treatment center on West Fifth Street in Greenville, retired from the Jones center last year after 20 years as its clinical director.
He said about 75 percent of the patients there are indigent with no way to pay for the services they receive. Most of the rest are covered by Medicaid or Medicare, and a few use private insurance.
"If the ADATCs went away, privately insured patients would be taken care of at private facilities," Leonhardt said.
Medicaid patients would have to participate in whatever new program the state puts together, he said, but the indigent population would be out in the cold, navigating whatever system they could get into for help.
"The system would back up emergency departments, already dealing with the many patients who can't get a bed at the center and with other medical issues that the poor face," he said.
The 80-bed inpatient Walter B. Jones Center admitted 1,368 individuals last state fiscal year, according to a state DHHS spokesman. The facility is accredited by the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospitals and provides treatment that includes medical detoxification, inpatient methadone treatment, round-the-clock nursing and medical care, psychiatric stabilization and short-term inpatient treatment for individuals with substance abuse and other co-occurring mental health diagnoses
The Jones center employs about 180 people, including 169 full-time personnel, and received $12,232,899 in state funds last year. The center serves as a training site for medical students, psychiatric and family practice residents, nursing, physician assistants, recreational therapists, social work and substance abuse counselors, the state spokesman said.
'We have a crisis'
Rep. Susan Martin, R-Wilson, a member of the House Health and Human Services Committee, looks at the Senate's drug treatment proposal as part of the larger issue of providing mental health care that dates back to the state's earlier, unsuccessful efforts to privatize services.
"I know everything is on the table to provide the most effective care at the right price and right place, and there's some truth to the belief that certain people can be treated better in the community (privately)," Martin said. "But it's important that we have resources for all the different levels of need.
"We now have a real shortage that leads to the kinds of problems that people in community emergency departments face, with people waiting for days for spaces that hospitals are not ready to deal with," she said. " Now we have a crisis."
Status:
"48 years in MD, 18 in NC"
(set 15 days ago)
Location: Greenville, NC
2,309 posts, read 6,105,617 times
Reputation: 1430
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Bret Wickstrom
Any leads on where the Super Target is going. I heard just west of the theater on Greenville Blvd. If that's true that seems like a terrible location.
That's not a smart place for it. Walmart and Lowes have both realized the east side of Greenville is growing too. The west side is served by the current Target, which is right around the corner from the current Walmart. If they were to put a new target further west Target would seriously be loosing out on all of the peeps on the east side. They would simply go to the Walmart instead of fighting their way to go even further away.
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