Davie Medical Center Opens – Clinics Ready, Emergency Room Set For October Start
Published 12:00 am Thursday, August 29, 2013
By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record
BERMUDA RUN – Heather Hayes has been busy since moving to Davie County some five years ago.
As project administrator for the new Davie Medical Center here – her work and that of hundreds of others is coming to fruition. The medical center’s clinics opened on Monday. In October, the emergency room will open.
“We’ve been booking patients for months to this campus,” she said. “This campus is designed to serve Davie, southern Yadkin and western Forsyth.”
The four-story, 60,000 square-foot medical plaza, called Phase 1, provides patient access to services including orthopaedics, podiatry, cardiology, neurology and ophthalmology. It includes an outpatient pharmacy, physical therapy, cardiac rehabilitation and lab collection services.
“It’s an honor for us to serve this region and community,” said Dr. John D. McConnell, chief executive officer at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “This is the first phase of our $100 million commitment to provide high quality and cost effective care to those we serve.”
Not counting doctors, the medical center employs 70 people in Phase 1. About half are new hires.
When Phase 2 opens in October, the emergency room will be open. In-patient rooms will open in 2017.
Hayes said it is exciting to see employees from the old Davie County Hospital enter the new building. “It’s so neat to see the staff from that building come over for the first time.” Their reaction is almost always the same. “It’s awesome.”
“Hopefully, when we open the new hospital, we should create over 100 new jobs,” said Brue Chandler, interim CEO of the Davie Medical Center. “We’re updating the quality of services we offer in Davie County.”
The first-floor includes rehab and occupational therapy areas, including showers for those who want to undergo their therapy and then head to work. “This should be one of the busiest places in the building,” Hayes said.
“We’re trying to create that one-stop shop for our patients,” Hayes said. They can see the doctor, complete rehab, visit the pharmacy and more.
Soon after entering the front door, there are paintings on the wall of historic scenes from Downtown Mocksville. Other art work shows mostly rural scenes. The ideas for the type of art came from a focus group of local residents, Hayes said.
“We’ve gotten a lot of compliments on our art work,” she said …