Latest news with #PrincetonCommunityHospital
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
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WVU Medicine extends commitment further in Mercer County with $25M emergency and behavior health facility
bluefield – Officials broke ground Thursday for a new $25 million health care campus that will serve behavioral health and emergency medical needs across a 10-county region encompassing parts of West Virginia and Virginia. Supporters gathered outside the Behavioral Health Pavilion of the Virginias off Route 460 in Bluefield for the ceremony which marks the start of the site's transformation. 'It's a great event today and I'm super excited to talk about our $25 million project,' Princeton Community Hospital president and CEO Karen Bowling said. 'I think it's important for us to acknowledge how we got here today and how this project came about,' she said. 'It is important for us to invest in Mercer County. There's a great need here and we are so fortunate to have a great board of directors who have vision and saw the need for this project, but more importantly we have a great system board. And Albert Wright, who leads that system board, they were able to believe in us and know this is a great investment in Mercer County.' Bowling said the Bluefield and Bluefield, Va. area is important to the hospital. 'And it's not just about the location, but really it is to express to the Bluefield community that we're invested in state-of-the-art health care in this part of Mercer County,' she said. 'We believe that's key for everyone to know and understand we are here to serve a 10-county region and this part of the county actually borders on several counties that we serve; and we want to make sure as we think about comprehensive care across our region that we're able to do that through the types of projects you're about to see.' Scheduled to be completed in late 2027, the Bluefield Campus project includes a 24,000-square-foot addition and an 18,000-square-foot renovation to the existing facility now housing Princeton Community's 64-bed behavioral health hospital. In this project, the expansion will consolidate Princeton Community Hospital's services into a single facility that will be visible from Route 460, one of Mercer County's main highways. The hospital's behavioral health facility serves patients not only from Mercer County, but also the West Virginia counties of Raleigh, McDowell, Monroe, Summers and Wyoming as well as the Southwest Virginia counties of Tazewell, Bland, Giles and Wythe. While the facility is currently called the Behavioral Health Pavilion of the Virginias, it's getting a new name. 'I'm very excited to announce that our new name for our behavioral health service is WVU Medicine PCH Behavioral Health Center,' Bowling said. The campus's new emergency department will include 20 exam rooms, including two rooms designed for psychiatric intake; two resuscitation rooms and two triage rooms; obstetrics-ready and trauma rooms; centralized care team support stations; and dedicated patient and ambulance entrances. Adjacent to the emergency department, there will be a new 10-bed observation unit providing flexible capabilities for extended monitoring, Bowling said. Each observation room will include an in-room bathroom, and the unit will feature an Individual of Size room to ensure inclusive care. Bowling also described features for outpatient and diagnostic services, including lab services for both walk-in and inpatient care as well as respiratory therapy services. The facility's imaging suite will have diagnostic radiology; a computed tomography scanner; a magnetic resonance imaging scanner and two ultrasound rooms. The MRI and ultrasound rooms will be new services for Bluefield. The Bluefield Campus will also have a Safe Haven Baby Box, the fifth one in West Virginia and the first in southern West Virginia, Bowling said. This climate-controlled, padded device allows parents in crisis to safely and anonymously surrender a newborn up to 30 days old, as permitted under West Virginia's Safe Haven Law. Once a baby is placed inside, a silent alarm immediately alerts hospital staff to respond and provide care. Mayor Ron Martin of Bluefield, said the new emergency department will be more than another building. 'It's a promise that our families will have quicker access to lifesaving care, that our seniors, our children and our neighbors can count on world-class treatment right here at home,' he said. 'This ER means faster response times and outcomes and a renewed commitment to Bluefield.' Twenty-five million dollars is a huge investment that the Princeton Community could not have made as a stand-alone hospital, said Rusty Sarver, Princeton Community Hospital Association Board Chair. 'This is definitely a pinnacle,' Sarver said to the audience. 'We do support Bluefield. We do support this side of the county. Everything that we do is for the people and at the end of the day, that's why we're here.' Albert Wright, WVU Health System president and CEO, said groundbreaking ceremonies like the one conducted Thursday remind him how the Legislature started the West Virginia University Health System in 1996. It was created by the merging of WVU Hospitals in Morgantown and United Hospital Center in Bridgeport. 'At that time in the mid to late nineties, a lot of health care organizations around the country including West Virginia were being bought up by out-of-state, for-profit entities, ' Wright said. There was a concern that if there was not a West Virginia-based hospital system, at some point all of the decisions about the state's health care would be made out of state. He said the new Bluefield campus will reinforce WVU Medicine's commitment to health outcomes in West Virginia. Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital breaks ground on PCH Bluefield campus
BLUEFIELD, WV (WVNS) – WVU Medicine continues to expand with the breaking of ground for the new Bluefield campus of Princeton Community Hospital. Located on Southview Drive, the $25 million facility will offer state-of-the-art care to residents in the area. The location will be home to the Bluefield Emergency Department and PCH Behavioral Health Center, and the expansion itself is part of an effort by WVU Medicine to offer comprehensive access and care to patients no matter where they are in the state, according to Princeton Community Hospital President and CEO, Karen Bowling.'One reason WVU Medicine has expanded is we want to make sure we are serving the entire community and that it is a comprehensive level of care,' she said. 'If you think about it, we're on the same medical record. Whether you're in Princeton or you're in Bluefield, whether you need to go to Ruby to have a bone marrow transplant – we're all on the same medical record.'Bowling said the expansion is about communities, families, and serving the region as well as the state. 'As someone who grew up in this region, I know firsthand how much this investment means,' she continued. 'This project is about more than bricks and mortar; it's about giving our families, friends, and neighbors access to the kind of care they deserve, right here at home. WVU Medicine is making a promise to this region, and I'm proud to be part of delivering on that promise.' WVU Medicine President & CEO, Albert Wright reiterated the importance of widespread coverage under a single umbrella as it pertains to patient care. 'This project exemplifies WVU Medicine's unwavering investment in delivering high-quality, accessible care to West Virginians,' he said. 'By expanding services and upgrading facilities, like here at the Bluefield Campus, we're not only enhancing patient care, but we're also reinforcing our long-term commitment to advancing health outcomes in southern West Virginia.'Features of the Bluefield campus will include: The new emergency department (ED) will include: 20 exam rooms, including two rooms designed for psychiatric intake Two resuscitation rooms and two triage rooms OB-ready and trauma rooms Centralized care team support stations Dedicated patient and ambulance entrances Diagnostic Radiology — two radiology rooms Computed Tomography (CT) — one CT scanner Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) — one MRI scanner (a new service for Bluefield) Ultrasound — two ultrasound rooms (a new service for Bluefield) Guest speakers and live music were part of the groundbreaking celebration as guests got their first look at plans for the new facility. PCH plans to officially open the doors to its Bluefield campus in the Fall of 2027, as the provider hopes to further extend the scope of patient accessibility and care. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Robot-assisted surgery serving thousands
princeton — It resembles an assembly line's robot arm or a science fiction movie's prop, but it's one of two robots that local surgeons have used to help perform knee and hip replacement procedures. The WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital Orthopedic Center recently announced that over 2,000 robotic-assessed robotic-assisted joint replacements had been performed at its facilities with two Mako robotic systems. Princeton Community Hospital was the first hospital in West Virginia to have two of these robots. During a visit Thursday at one of the two operating rooms using the robotic system, Dr. Philip Branson, MD, medical director of PCH's Orthopedic Center and Dr. Nick Higinbotham, DO, spoke about how the devices changed the way knee and hip procedures are performed now. The Mako system makes incisions more precise, Higinbotham said. Its computer screens allows surgeons to plan operations in three dimensions. 'You're able to see in real time the cuts that you're making, makes minor adjustments and then after all of the implants are in, you're able to actually test the stability of the knee, the alignment, and how it's balanced,' he said. 'We didn't have any of that information prior to having the robot. You kind of had to do it by feel before this technology was available.' The robot does not do the actual surgery. 'Correct,' Higinbotham said. 'It's just an aid. It helps you make more precise cuts and it also gives you realtime feedback. Is the knee balanced and is it in good alignment?' Many patients come from the region's senior citizens, but others have traveled from beyond southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia. 'We have people coming from as far away as Canada now, so we have people coming from Canada and inquiring about having it (surgery) done here, Branson said. 'In terms of the technology, I think the way it works which differs from the other is called 'Scan, Plan and then the Robot can.' We have three-dimensional scan. The difference between this and previous technology is that we now have a complete three-dimensional model of the entire leg including the hip, the knee and the ankle.' Branson looked at the images on the Mako system's monitors. 'And as you see from the screens, we initially plan the surgery on the robot and establish the alignment. In contrast to the old ways we put rods up into the bones and we approximated what we saw on the X-rays in two dimensions,' Branson said. 'So it's a substantial change. In hip replacement, for example, we can be precise in terms of the length of the leg and what we call the offset of the hip, which decreases the postoperative limp for patients with total hip replacement.' The surgical cutting attachment is connected to three metal spheres on the robot arm's tip. The robot has feedback which positions its arm relative to the bone and tracks the bone's position, Higinbotham said. While the surgeon does the work, the robot helps keep the cuts on track. Higinbotham compared the robot to ones seen on automotive assembly lines. 'The robot positions the cutting device very precisely for us,' Higinbotham said. Branson said most of the over 2,000 surgeries have been performed over the last three years, Princeton Community Hospital ranks seventh out of the 73 hospitals using the Mako device. This area includes larger hospitals such as the Cleveland Clinic and Columbus Hospital which has 40 surgeons. 'For three surgeons, what I think is remarkable first of all is in a community hospital when WVU came in and Karen Bowling (president and CEO of Princeton Community Hospital) came in, they got a second robot, so we use two robots so we can do a higher volume of surgery,' Branson said.' For a community hospital, it is exceptional to have surgeons with a lot of robotic experience, he said. 'We have more people who are traveling in. It's interesting,' Branson said. 'Our primary service is the patients who have been loyal to us for years in the Bluefield, Princeton, Beckley and surrounding areas, but now we have people who are coming in from further distances, so we see more and more of that.' Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Behavioral Health Pavilion celebrates15 years of service
bluefield — A facility providing mental health services to West Virginia, Virginia and beyond celebrated its anniversary Friday and recounted the care it has provided to over 104,000 people since its opening over a decade ago. Princeton Community Hospital, now WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital, opened the Behavioral Health Pavilion of the Virginias to bring mental health services to the community. Since opening, the pavilion has cared for around 22,000 individuals with its inpatient program and another 82,000 through its outpatient programs. People from West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky have been served by the pavilion's physicians and personnel. 'Fifteen years ago, Princeton Community Hospital embarked on this journey with a vision — to create a place where individuals could find hope, healing, and support. Our facility has become a beacon of hope for those in need, and it is all because of the dedication of our team and the support of our community,' said John Nekic, executive director of the Behavioral Health Pavilion. The Behavioral Health Pavilion, located at the site of the former St. Luke's Hospital in Bluefield, is a 64-bed behavioral health hospital for adults, outpatient psychiatric medication management, individual and family counseling and an intensive outpatient program to help adults prevent a hospital stay or transition from inpatient to outpatient care. The need for accessible mental health services in West Virginia continues to grow, hospital officials said. More than a quarter of West Virginians consider their mental health to be fair or poor and the state faces higher rates of substance use compared to the national average. Karen Bowling, CEO and president of WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital, said during a celebration at the pavilion that the hospital plans to break ground this spring on a full-service emergency department co-located at the pavilion to improve both behavioral health care and emergency care for the Bluefield community. This project will enhance emergency care for both acute patients and those experiencing behavioral emergencies, she said. 'With our plans for the new emergency department, we are creating a space that not only provides immediate care for emergency patients but also offers close, seamless access to behavioral health services,' Bowling said. 'This is a critical step forward in ensuring that those in crisis receive the care they need without unnecessary transfers or delays. This project will make a significant impact on the lives of the people we serve.' Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@
