ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607300008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
St. Albans Hospital recently renamed its 85-acre campus the "Carilion St. Albans Center" - a change that means more than just new signs and stationery.
The hospital continues to care for people who suffer from mental illness and chemical dependencies. But it also is opening some facilities to people and groups not affiliated with the hospital, to recover some costs of maintaining its large campus.
Office space in the original hospital building, now mostly unused, is being leased to medical professionals; St. Albans' conference center, in partnership with Radford University, is being opened to outside groups; and ropes courses for team-building activities are available to local businesses and organizations.
The hospital itself will be called Carilion St. Albans Hospital, not a major change from its previous name. The campus, however, used to be called St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital.
Janet Crawford, the hospital's administrator, said the name was changed to reflect its new role as more than a psychiatric facility.
"We don't need an 85-acre campus," she said. "What we can do is to increase access to this campus."
St. Albans has been a presence in Radford for more than 100 years. In 1892, the year Radford was incorporated, St. Albans opened as a boys school. The school closed in 1911 and the property was purchased by Dr. J.C. King, who established the St. Albans Sanitorium in 1916.
The name later changed to St. Albans Hospital, but the mission remained the same: to care for the mentally ill and chemically dependent.
Times began to change during the early 1990s, however, with the dominance of managed care.
The number of patients has remained about the same, Crawford said, but the number of days spent in the hospital has steadily diminished.
In 1989, for example, 2,098 patients were treated at St. Albans, with an average in-patient stay of 21.5 days in the hospital. Crawford estimated 2,038 patients will be treated this year, with an average stay of 6.5 days.
With less money coming in, St. Albans has had to look for other ways to break even. Carilion Health System, which took over St. Albans' operations in 1992, moved its human resources division and Radford Community Home Care to vacant buildings on the hospital's campus.
The current hospital operations, including in- and out-patient care and administrative offices, are contained in a 95,000-square-foot brick building constructed in the late 1970s.
Carilion employees also are using office space in the original hospital building, which stands next to its more modern replacement and recently was named the King Center, after St. Albans' founder. Space in the King Center is being leased to health care professionals at less than $10 per square foot, which includes utilities.
So far, Radford psychiatrist Dr. Neil Dubner is the only outside renter, but Crawford expects more will follow.
Talks are under way with a nonprofit counseling agency in Roanoke called Family Place for an office that would be open one or two days a week
While space will be leased only to people within the health care profession, some of St. Albans' facilities will be open to outside use.
St. Albans' main hospital building has a large meeting room and a suite of 10 rooms, which will rent for $20 a night to conference participants. These will be offered to organizations in conjunction with Radford University.
The university has had a long relationship with St. Albans, said Christi Leftwich, Radford's conference coordinator. Working with it to accommodate groups that want to have conferences in Radford was natural, Leftwich said, because the university does not have overnight lodging on campus for organizations that meet longer than a day.
The university also helped fund the indoor and outdoor ropes courses, used for team-building activities that will be open to local businesses.
"Since most businesses are re-engineering into team [management], this fits right in," said John Webber, who heads the ropes course.
Bringing in outside business to a hospital is not necessarily a natural fit. For some people, mental illness bears a stigma that is attached to the entire institution. Patient confidentiality also will be a concern as outside tenants come and go.
But Crawford said the regular tenants who will use St. Albans' facilities understand the needs of the patients. Outside groups that use the conference center and ropes courses will be on a schedule that will not compromise patient confidentiality, she said.
She stressed that medical care will remain the hospital's primary mission. But she also wants the campus to remain financially viable.
"This hill has been occupied for over 100 years," Crawford said. "[Carilion is] not going to just come in and say we're closed and put up a for-sale sign."
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. St. Albans' conference center, inby CNBpartnership with Radford
University, is being opened to outside groups. color.