Accreditation

Small hospital weighs renovating, rebuilding

Accreditation Connection, June 13, 2005

Doctors and administrators at a 25-bed hospital in West Virginia are debating whether or not to rebuild or renovate their 1964 facility to better meet JCAHO and other national standards, according to a newspaper report.

Boone County Memorial Hospital officials have asked state regulators for approval to spend $20 million to build a new hospital at the same Madison, WV, location, according to the Charleston Daily Mail story.

But three physicians responsible for admitting up to 80% of Boone's patients believe assuming such a large debt would jeopardize the hospital's very existence. "We're concerned about the longevity of a hospital with promised Medicare and Medicaid cutbacks," Ron Stollings, MD, of the Madison Medical Group says in the newspaper story. "We are totally dependent on that."

Administrator Tommy Mullins told the newspaper that room sizes, plumbing, the air conditioning system, and other aspects of the hospital violate national hospital standards. "Every time the Joint Commission comes through, they give us more recommendations that we can't afford to have fixed," Mullins said in the story.

Click here to read more about the issues facing the hospital, as reported in the Charleston Daily Mail.

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