State health regulators have approved Cone Health expanding its presence in Alamance County with a 46-bed hospital in Mebane projected to open in 2029.
Cone’s Tuesday announcement of gaining conditional approval for its $250 million hospital comes before an official posting from the N.C. Division of Health Service Regulation that typically provides the reasoning behind its decision.
Regulators denied Novant Health Inc.’s latest attempt to expand its community hospital presence in a new market after rejecting recent applications in the Asheville and Raleigh areas.
The systems filed their competing bids in April.
Novant has partnered with Duke Health in its application to open a Mebane hospital.
Novant and Duke Health could not be immediately reached for comment. In many certificate-of-need application instances, the losing applicant files an appeal of the decision that could take several months, if not a year or more to resolve.
“We’re thrilled to see this project move forward,” said Chad Boone, president of Cone’s Alamance Regional Medical Center in Burlington.
“It will make a real difference for families in our region.”
Mebane
Mebane’s about 20,500 residents sit on both the eastern part of the Triad and the western edge of the Triangle, with the town limits dipping into Orange County.
Mebane is perhaps best known for the Tanger outlet shopping center and a series of truck stops, but the city has grown into a popular bedroom community for people commuting into Greensboro, Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh.
Cone plans to build the community hospital at 103 Medical Park Drive, adjacent to Cone’s MedCenter facility in Mebane.
The proposed Duke Novant Mebane Hospital would represent a $225 million capital investment for a facility to be located at a site off Gregory Poole Lane. Duke University Health System owns the property.
The application is the first for Cone since being acquired in December by Risant Health, which has made a $1.7 billion financial commitment over five years to Cone.
“Cone Health has successfully helped meet the healthcare needs of eastern Alamance County close to home for more than a dozen years,” said Bernie Sherry, Cone’s interim chief executive.
“This hospital will strengthen our ability to serve the community and ensure access to care for generations to come.”
Cone’s pitch
Cone emphasized to state health regulators its presence in the Alamance healthcare marketplace, most notably its ownership and operation of the 238-bed Burlington hospital since May 2013.
Boone said Cone has 45 full-time Medical Group providers serving Alamance residents.
Dr. Mary Jo Cagle, who stepped down as president and chief executive of Cone on May 31, said in December that Risant’s financial commitment will make it more feasible for Cone to expand its operational presence in Alamance, Forsyth, Randolph and Rockingham counties.
Dr. Chester Yarbrough, a neurosurgeon with Cone’s medical group, said the addition of the Mebane hospital would help ease a capacity crunch at the Burlington hospital that typically results in a 95% general medical surgical bed occupancy rate.
The Burlington hospital tends to have “a double-digit number of patients regularly boarding in its emergency department waiting for inpatient beds to become available.”
He added, “This situation has become increasingly common as demand for Cone Health’s services has grown.”
Duke/Novant pitch
Duke and Novant chose Mebane as the potential first location of a statewide expansion collaboration whose seeds were planted in March. They would have equal ownership of their proposed Mebane hospital.
A Mebane hospital would represent Novant’s first entrance into Alamance County, while expanding significantly on Duke’s presence beyond the Kernodle clinics in Burlington and Mebane.
Duke-Novant said the Mebane hospital is “designed to meet the rising demand for acute care services, expand access to quality healthcare, and foster healthy competition within Alamance County, ultimately benefiting the entire community.”
Dr. Pam Oliver, Novant’s chief medical officer and one of its top Triad executives, focused her remarks on the network of community hospitals Novant owns and has established in the Triad and Charlotte areas.
She talked about hospitals built in Ballantyne, Clemmons, Huntersville, Kernersville, Matthews, Mint Hill and Scotts Hill. Novant recently gained South Carolina regulatory authorization to build a 20-bed hospital in Greenville, S.C.
Simon Curtis, chief operating officer of Duke Health Integrated Practice, said the proposed Mebane hospital would provide insight into how the Duke-Novant statewide collaboration “would develop new care models and build facilities that are responsive, inclusive and high performing.”
Citing that more than 68,000 Alamance residents already receive care from Duke facilities, Curtis said the Mebane hospital “would not establish a new relationship, but rather reflects an established, deeply rooted partnership that this hospital will strengthen.”
rcraver@wsjournal.com
336-727-7376
@rcraverWSJ
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