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Health care


Carilion Health System begins major consolidation project

Virginia Business
January 2005

Construction on the largest project in Roanoke Valley’s history — a $105 million expansion of Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital — is underway. The project will encompass a multistory addition to make room for women’s and children’s services currently provided at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital.

Hospital officials say that, once the expansion is completed, patients will find it easier to drive, park and find their doctors on the Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital campus. Along with expansion of the hospital’s south tower, planned improvements include a new, two-lane access road around the hospital campus; additional entrance points, a new parking garage and more street-level parking, and the creation of smaller “specialty hospitals” on the campus. Among them will be a heart hospital, outpatient surgery center, obstetrics hospital and medical center for children.

“Over the next two years, we will become one of the largest medical centers in Virginia, yet continue to serve this area as a community hospital,” said Dr. Edward G. Murphy, Carilion’s president and CEO.
Hospital officials say that, although the project will cost about $105 million, it will eliminate the need for several renovation and construction projects, including a new building for the Jefferson College of Health Sciences that would cost a total of $88 million. In essence, officials say, building the addition will cost $17 million more than continuing the inefficient status quo. However, the consolidated medical campus is expected to save more than $5 million in operating costs each year.

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