Cartersville Medical Center (CMC) CEO Chris Mosley told The Daily Tribune News the local hospital is pursuing a $30 million expansion project, which would increase the footprint of the facility by about 37,000 square feet. “We’re proposing the addition of two patient floors to our north tower, and this will add 20 beds to our hospital,” Mosley said. “It will bring the total number of licensed beds up to 139.” The proposed fourth floor of the expansion would house the new beds while a proposed fifth floor expansion would create a new storage and support space, which Mosley said would remain unfinished. “At such time that we needed additional capacity, we would then be able to come back and finish out that fifth floor and add additional beds,” he said. The project would also entail an expansion of the hospital’s central sterile department within its surgical services area. “It creates new efficiencies,” Mosley said. “It’s about increased throughput, better turnaround time so that we can provide a consistent environment for our surgeons, for our staff and, most importantly, for our patients.”

 

CMC notified the Georgia Department of Community Health’s Office of Health Planning about the pending Certificate of Need application earlier this month. At this point, Mosley said a timetable for the project has not been identified. “We obviously have to have our Certificate of Need to get started, and it will depend on the timing around that,” he said. At the earliest, Mosley said he would anticipate work on the expansion getting underway by the beginning of next year. The expansion project, he said, would necessitate more hospital personnel. “To staff the beds, we certainly would see an increased number of jobs,” he said. “We’ve not quantified that as of yet, but that would certainly be something that we would look to have.” The proposed expansion, Mosley said, wouldn’t necessarily impact the hospital’s pursuit of either Level II trauma center or neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) designations. Rather, he said the catalyst for the proposed expansion is enhancing capacity.  “This project is predicated on the growth within Bartow County and us continuing to stay on top of that, being able to meet the needs for medical services within the community,” Mosley said. “We are meeting the needs of the community right now, but we can foresee a day when we’re going to have even more volume, as the population continues to increase.”

 

(Article By James Swift/The Daily Tribune News)