Two top executives of competing health-care systems who battled for more than two years over the rights to build a hospital in the growing Advance/Clemmons area slapped each other on the back and shook hands for news cameras Wednesday. Donny Lambeth, the president of N.C. Baptist Hospital, and Greg Beier, the president of acute-care services for Novant Health, had just announced an agreement that could lead to each company building small, community-based hospitals just four miles apart. But this solution, while it could ultimately enhance health care and economic development in that area and create healthy competition, comes with several challenges.
Novant had proposed the two-hospital solution more than a year ago, but Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Baptist Hospital's parent company, had balked. Wednesday, Beier said the area's growth will support both hospitals. In fact, the agreement approved by the state even gives Wake Forest Baptist the option, pending a review by Novant, to pursue a certificate of need from the state for a third hospital -- a 25-bed critical-access-care facility in Mocksville to replace the aging Davie County Hospital, the Journal's Richard Craver reported.
Continuing the fight would have been a losing proposition for both sides. It would have cost a small fortune in legal fees at a time when dollars are tight, even in the health-care field. It would have also prevented either system from building a hospital for years as construction costs and patient needs mounted. So Lambeth and Beier, who described themselves Wednesday as friends whose health-care systems continue to cooperate on beneficial projects, worked for months on the agreement.
Wake Forest Baptist will build in Advance, at Interstate 40 and N.C. 801, starting out with a medical complex that will include physician practices and outpatient care. Lambeth said Wake Forest Baptist will study the feasibility of opening a 50-bed hospital on the site. It has dropped its plans to pursue a birthing center there, which may have helped seal the agreement with Novant. It performs the majority of births in the region at its Forsyth Medical Center.
It's uncertain whether Wake Forest Baptist will pursue both the Advance hospital and the Mocksville facility. Lambeth said such questions will require more study. For its part, Novant can proceed with plans for a medical complex and a 50-bed hospital in Clemmons, off Harper Road, that will include five operating rooms, an emergency department and outpatient care. It received tentative state approval for that site last year. Wake Forest Baptist had appealed that approval, but will drop its opposition.
By a term of their agreement, Wake Forest Baptist and Novant each has to wait seven years from the time they receive a certificate of need before offering inpatient beds in the Advance/Clemmons area, although that term doesn't apply to the potential hospital in Mocksville. And each system plans to begin its other services within the next few years. Eventually, the hospitals and medical complexes should provide jobs for several hundred people, strengthen the tax rolls and attract related businesses.
But some critics contend that the area won't be able to support two hospitals, much less three. Others say that Novant's plans in Clemmons have slowed Wake Forest Baptist's plans, to the detriment of health care in Davie County. Beier and Lambeth acknowledged that some residents will be disappointed that they will have to wait three to seven years for the medical facilities. Construction could be further slowed if the economy doesn't soon begin to rebound.
But Lambeth and Beier have forged a pragmatic agreement that will allow their hospitals to bet on the future of the Davie/Clemmons area. As Novant and Wake Forest Baptist compete, we trust that they will put quality, affordable care for their patients first.
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