Hospitals compete for share of north High Point market. Check it out:
(High Point Enterprise (NC) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 26--HIGH POINT -- The race is on for patients in north High Point.
In a week's span this month, plans for major facilities were announced by Moses Cone Health System and High Point Regional Health System. Both multi-million-dollar facilities are targeted for north High Point -- within two miles of each other. Both should be completed by mid- to late 2008.
High Point Regional, in conjunction with Cornerstone Health Care, plans up to a 50,000-square-foot facility on Premier Drive that could cost $15 million. Moses Cone intends to build a 51,000 square-foot facility, projected to cost $20 million, on Willard Dairy Road.
"It's disappointing to see somebody else want to put a facility in north High Point," said Eric Fletcher, High Point Regional director of public relations and marketing.
"North High Point, historically, has aligned with High Point Regional as far as patient usage. We're proud of the access we've provided in north High Point and continue to provide."
Whatever Moses Cone does, Fletcher said High Point Regional and Cornerstone will move ahead with the project.
"We think we've been very responsible in our growth in north High Point," he said. "That's where the disappointment comes in. We provide outstanding care, world-class facilities, and we're starting to replicate those facilities closer to where people live and work."
Unlike Moses Cone, High Point Regional and Cornerstone have not filed a certificate of need application with the Division of Facility Services in the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
"Medical office buildings are exempt from certificate-of-need laws," Fletcher said. "We're evaluating what services might go in there. If we meet the criteria, we certainly would apply."
Fletcher said there's a good chance the mix of services for Premier Medical Plaza will require a certificate of need. Current plans call for physician offices, a fertility center and diagnostic imaging.
Moses Cone Health System insists it has a lot of patients to serve in north High Point.
"We serve 44 percent of the people who live in the targeted area," said Doug Allred, Moses Cone public relations specialist. "We see it as a way of enhancing our service to those folks."
The "it" Allred refers to is a new $20 million, 51,000 square-foot facility on Willard Dairy Road.
"Part of our service is a seven-day, 24-hour-a-day emergency department," Allred said. "That will give people along the (N.C.) 68 corridor a much more convenient way to get that kind of service.
"It's a growing area. We hope, when additional growth comes, to see some of that as well."
Allred said Moses Cone, which has already filed an application for a certificate-of-need with the state, has been planning its new facility quite a while. The state will decide whether the facility will conflict with High Point Regional and Cornerstone Health Care's planned new $15 million facility or duplicate services to north High Point, Allred said.
Martha Frisone, project analyst for the Certificate Need Section of the state Division of Facility Services, said if applications are submitted in the same review period and for the same services, they are reviewed competitively.
"Cone's application will not be reviewed competitively with anything," she said. "When, and if, High Point should submit something, we will evaluate High Point's application based on the facts in existence at the time we do the review."
Frisone said each certificate-of-need applicant must stake out its service area.
"The applicant has to identify the population served and demonstrate the need of that population for the proposed services," she said.
"They have to demonstrate that it won't result in unnecessary duplication of existing or approved services or facilities," she said.
To see more of the High Point Enterprise, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.hpe.com.
Copyright (c) 2006, High Point Enterprise, N.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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