First Women's Hospital In Wake County

Show WakeMed Your Support for Wake County’s First Women’s Hospital

2008-10-14T13:15:00.006-04:00

We need your help once again to let the state know how important it is to the northern Wake County community that the 41 beds available in Wake County be approved to be added to WakeMed North Healthplex.

On Monday, October 20 a public hearing will be held at the Lighthouse Convention Center on Tryon Road in Raleigh starting at 1:00 pm in the afternoon. This is your opportunity to voice your support for North Healthplex. We encourage you to attend to help us visually demonstrate what the new beds would mean to the northern Wake County.

Certificate of Need Public Hearing
October 20 at 1 pm
Lighthouse Convention Center
326 Tryon Road, Raleigh

CON Application Update

2008-08-20T12:03:00.006-04:00

We would like to thank everyone who has submitted letters in support of Wake County’s first and only full-service women’s hospital.

Last Friday, August 15, we submitted the certificate of need application to the NC Division of Health Service Regulation. But turning in the application is just the beginning. For the next month, letters will still be accepted. So, if you haven’t had a chance to submit your letter, you still have an opportunity to express your support. After September 30, there will be a quiet period as the applications are reviewed by the state.

Then, there will likely be a public hearing in mid-October. As we get more details on this hearing, we will post them to this blog. Ultimately, we expect a decision towards the end of January.

We will continue to post to this blog regularly to keep you updated. Please stay tuned.

Preparing For the Future

2008-08-12T17:01:00.006-04:00

A visitor to the blog recently posed interesting question. "With all of the growth in the system does the WakeMed still need the additional 41 beds?"

The answer is yes. This month, WakeMed opened the first new acute care beds in Wake County since Cary Hospital was built in 1991. We also expect to add 60 new beds to the Raleigh Campus next year. But, even with this significant growth, our predictions are that WakeMed's hospitals will still be operating at capacity and demand will be even greater because of population growth, not to mention the impact of the aging baby boomer generation. By 2013, Wake County's population is expected to reach 1 million residents. Only three years later, Wake County is expected to be the most populated county in North Carolina.

And, as the Baby Boomers begin to retire, the health care system needs to expand to respond to the growing needs of an aging population. According to a release distributed by the American Hospital Association last year, more than 37 million baby boomers - six out of 10 - will be managing more than one chronic health condition by 2030, when the last of the baby boomers reach age 65. Fourteen million will be living with diabetes (that's one out of every four Boomers). Almost half will be living with arthritis, peaking to just over 26 million in 2020. And, more than one out of three - over 21 million - will be considered obese. WakeMed needs to be prepared to handle the influx of patients.

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The News & Observer: N.C.'s older population to grow

About 20 percent of Americans will be older than 65 by 2030, compared to about 12 percent now, according to projections released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

For the complete story ... http://www.newsobserver.com/news/growth/census/story/1177477.html

A Women’s Hospital Will Free Capacity Systemwide

2008-08-07T16:34:00.001-04:00

The state's allocation of 41 beds allows for a very strong women’s hospital with the specialists that focus on women at all stages of their life. This women’s hospital will have a critical mass of patients so we can offer exceptional quality of care and breadth of service.

If this vision were expanded to a small community hospital, then the facility might have 2 beds for oncology, 1 bed for infectious disease, 4 beds for general surgery, 10 beds for cardiology, 3 beds for urology, 8 beds for internal medicine, etc. This subdividing of the patient base would lead to the lack of a critical mass to provide the kind of quality, expertise and service that WakeMed is committed to delivering.

Also, by adding these beds - beds that will be very highly utilized - we are freeing up beds in the rest of the system's facilities to provide the more general community based care. Those facilities are then adding to their critical mass of specialties - allowing them to optimize the level of quality, efficiency and service offered through their broad spectrum community-based services.

Why WakeMed?

2008-08-07T10:42:00.006-04:00

When thinking about which hospital should receive approval to develop the 41 beds available in Wake County, you might ask “why WakeMed?” The answer to that question is multifaceted, but we will address three reasons in this blog post.

1. Our hospitals are at or above capacity most days, and we need the 41 beds to ensure beds are available for patients. To help alleviate capacity issues, we recently added 42 new beds to WakeMed Cary Hospital, are developing 60 new beds on WakeMed Raleigh Campus, and are expanding Cary Hospital’s Women’s Pavilion and Birthplace by 10 beds. With the rate the community is growing, the need for more beds will still be there when these expansions are complete.

When a hospital is at or over capacity, patient flow throughout the system is impacted. For example, if you visit the emergency department and need to be admitted to the hospital, you may have to wait for an open bed. In turn, patients waiting to be seen in the emergency department will have to wait longer in triage or the waiting room because the bed they need is filled by a patient waiting for an inpatient bed. Multiply that scenario by hundreds of patients daily and it becomes a difficult situation for all. Adding more beds is the only solution to help solve this problem and reduce emergency department wait times across the system.

2. We set ourselves apart by focusing on outstanding quality and customer service, offering the most advanced technology, and featuring nationally recognized Centers of Excellence. As a result, WakeMed patients have the benefit of access to the highest level of care and expertise in women’s, neonatal, children’s, trauma, cardiac, rehabilitation, orthopaedics and neurosciences services. WakeMed features Wake County’s only:

· State-designated Level I trauma center
· Stand-alone emergency departments (in North Raleigh and Apex – the first in North Carolina)
· Air ambulance program, serving the entire region
· Dedicated Pediatric inpatient unit
· Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
· Award winning pediatric diabetes and asthma programs
· Children’s Emergency Department (first in North Carolina)
· Level IV Intensive Care Nursery
· Mother’s milk bank (one of only eight in the nation)
· Neuro Intensive Care Unit
· Inpatient rehabilitation hospital

3. For nearly 50 years, WakeMed has been a strong community partner. We have never wavered from our mission of providing outstanding and compassionate care to all who seek our services. We also devote time and resources to ensure we are prepared to respond to virtually any emergency or disaster situation in our region. We are the largest private employer in Wake County and continuously invest in our community to expand services for the benefit of all.

We truly believe we have the resources and infrastructure in place to make the best use of these 41 beds and to provide the highest level of care to the patients in this community. If you have any questions about the proposed hospital, we welcome comments and questions.

A New Women's Hospital: Just the Beginning

2008-08-01T10:57:00.008-04:00

We hope to use this blog as a forum for active discussion and we appreciate your comments. A visitor recently posed the question, "Why a Women's Hospital?"

WakeMed is committed to meeting the needs of all Northern Wake County residents. We envision a medical campus at North that has several components.

Those services that exist today include Emergency Services, Ambulatory Surgery, Laboratory, Imaging, and Physical Rehabilitation. In the future we expect the campus to grow and add more programs and services. For the time being only 41 medical/surgical beds are in the State Medical Facilities Plan. We believe this is an ideal number to add to the existing approved 20 beds and create a 61-bed women's hospital.

As for the men in North Raleigh: stay tuned for future expansions and additions to the North Healthplex campus.

Why North Raleigh?

2008-07-30T10:56:00.003-04:00

North Healthplex has been extremely successful, demonstrating the need for health care services in this community. The facility’s emergency department volumes are higher than more than half of the emergency departments in the entire state of North Carolina.

Additionally, North Healthplex’ existing emergency, surgery, diagnostic imaging, and laboratory services will provide the needed support for the proposed women’s hospital.

WakeMed just finished construction on 42 new acute care beds at WakeMed Cary Hospital to serve the growing health care needs of southern and western Wake County. We also opened Apex Healthplex in February of this year to help serve the emergency needs of western Wake County. We feel strongly that the 41 beds that are available this year should go to the northern part of Wake County.