Outpatient and Cancer Center Are Latest Upgrades to Randolph Hospital
health care, moses cone health system, outpatient, outpatient and cancer center, randolph hospital, robert e. morrison, the edward m. armfield sr. foundation,
Continuous improvement may be a corporate catch phrase, but it’s also a tangible benefit to patients at Randolph Hospital.
The hospital has undertaken a series of upgrades during its 75-year history, the latest of which is a new Outpatient and Cancer Center opening later in 2008.
“This idea came out of our ongoing planning process to look at the health-care needs of Asheboro and Randolph County,” says Robert E. Morrison, hospital president and CEO. And what an idea it was. The 58,000-square-foot addition dramatically upgrades patients’ cancer-treatment options and expands outpatient services, making them more efficient, convenient and accessible.
“We had heard from people in the community, and we had heard from doctors on our medical staff, that the lack of comprehensive cancer services was the biggest unmet need in this community,” Morrison says.
A partnership with Moses Cone Health System, the Cancer Center will feature a linear accelerator, the latest radiation technology to battle the disease. Randolph Hospital began offering cancer services in 1999, and patient visits since 2002 have nearly tripled to about 7,000 annually.
The hospital outpatient numbers are staggering, with more than 96,000 outpatient visits in 2006.
“We had just outgrown the outpatient space that we had, and so this was a perfect time to create those synergies all in one location,” Morrison says.
The Outpatient Center allows seamless coordination of various services, including high-level CT scanning and ultrasound imaging, mammography, virtual colonoscopy, stereotactic breast biopsy and interventional radiology procedures. Patients may also receive minor surgical procedures such as bronchoscopies and endoscopies.
“This will be sophisticated outpatient services at a level that’s usually not available in a community of this size,” Morrison says.
Because Randolph Hospital is a nonprofit facility, community support runs high – and has throughout the hospital’s history, he adds. Through a bond issue, the hospital borrowed $23 million to make the Outpatient and Cancer Center a reality, yet the project’s total cost will be closer to $28 million. “We do not go to the community frequently for contributions, but as a nonprofit hospital with a mission of taking care of everybody without regard to their ability to pay, it’s really difficult to accumulate the money for major capital expenditures like this,” Morrison says. Thus, the hospital embarked on the “Building Quality Care Close to Home” capital campaign, the hospital’s first major fundraising effort since 1988.
The community answered the call. By October 2007, $4.6 million had been raised and the campaign was still going strong. Members of the hospital boards, employees and medical staff pledged more than $1 million, while The Edward M. Armfield Sr. Foundation, a nonprofit charitable foundation in Greensboro, contributed $1 million, the largest gift in the history of the hospital.
Now that’s support.
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
Photo by Todd Bennett
