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BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. – The West Virginia Health Care Authority has approved a certificate of intent from Mon Health System, part of Vandalia Health, for a small format hospital in Harrison County.
According to David Goldberg, president and CEO of Mon Health System, the facility will cost $23 million and is expected to open within two years.
“This is going to be a little different because we have to build the building from the ground up,” Goldberg said. “We were able to find four walls of an old department store in Whitehall and build in it, which would have cut down on cost and time, but this is coming straight out of the ground.”
The facility will be built in the Charles Pointe mixed-use community near I-79. Charles Point is 1,700 acres with more than 2,000 residential units, more than 350,000 square feet of commercial space and a variety of civic or multi-use spaces managed by Jens Partners.
“Until the last few months, I didn’t know how many houses were planned,” Goldberg said. The expansion at the airport, the new sports center in Clarksburg – it makes perfect sense to be there.
Development, population and future growth are all reasons to build in the Charles Point area. However, Goldberg said that the concept of a small format will be suitable for the environment and will offer more options.
“When you look at a small format hospital, it fills in the gaps that you have with high-end services,” Goldberg said. “So, you don’t incur the cost of additional cath labs, additional operating rooms in these full-service hospitals.”
The Mon Health Marion Neighborhood Hospital, the first small format hospital in Whitehall, was built at a cost of around $20 million and opened last December. The 20,000 square foot facility offers 24/7 emergency care, ten inpatient beds and radiology, laboratory testing, cardiac monitoring and pharmacy.
“We had about 6,000 emergency room visits,” Goldberg said. “In our ten beds, we’ve had a maximum of six people and they’re loving the experience.”
Recently, Mon Health Systems and CAMC merged to form Vandalia Health, but Goldberg said the facility will carry the familiar “Mon” brand name.
“Over time we’ll start incorporating the Vandalia Health logo into what we do, but our market knows Mon and it’s always Monday,” Goldberg said. But we are now part of a much larger health system and it is important to share the breadth and depth of that.
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