ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 4, 1996 TAG: 9609040048
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER STAFF WRITER
Carilion Radford Community Hospital's bid to build a replacement hospital in Montgomery County received final approval from the state health commissioner Tuesday.
The decision comes more than six years years after hospital officials disclosed plans to move from downtown Radford, and 14 months after requesting a state certificate of public need in the face of heated competition from Blacksburg and Pulaski competitors.
It is also one battle in a larger, ongoing fight for dominance of the health care market in Southwest Virginia.
State Health Commissioner Randy Gordon said he chose Radford Community's bid over a competing joint proposal from the New River Valley's two Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. hospitals in part because Radford Community Hospital is the "most heavily used" in the area.
Gordon said an earlier recommendation from the Southwest Virginia Health Systems Agency also influenced his decision. The rationale for replacing the 54-year-old Radford Hospital - it was as expensive or cheaper than renovation - was made on "good grounds," Gordon added.
Carilion Radford Community Hospital plans to replace its 175-bed, 54-year-old building with a 97-bed hospital in Montgomery County, at the southeast corner of Interstate 81 and Virginia 177. Radford Community Hospital is part of Carilion Health System, a Roanoke-based nonprofit network of hospitals.
Radford Community President Lester Lamb said he expects to break ground on the $30 million, 238,371 square-foot hospital in the spring. Completion is targeted for fall 1998.
"Obviously we're elated," Lamb said "We felt all along we had a strong proposal and it was justified and endorsed by the commissioner."
Gordon said he denied the Columbia/HCA proposal to build a 50-bed facility within the Radford city limits because he didn't believe it was "necessary to meet the needs of the population." The hospitals are part of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain.
In a prepared statement, David R. Williams, chief executive officer of Columbia Montgomery Regional Hospital said he wasn't sure if the corporation would appeal Tuesday's denial. Any appeal would be filed with the Montgomery County Circuit Court.
"We're going to investigate all our options," Williams said. "We are disappointed in the commissioner's decision and feel Columbia offered a better and significantly less costly alternative to the area's future health care needs."
Tuesday's decision was part of a long application process.
Both parties have been waiting since May for Raymond Perry, an executive adviser to Gordon, to make his recommendation to Gordon. Perry did so Tuesday.
Paul Parker, director of the state's certificate of need program, said the Radford Community replacement is the state's second in five years. The other, approved this year, is in Charlottesville. It replaced a hospital that closed last year.
Statewide, Parker said, the trend is changing from building new hospitals and toward replacing, consolidating or expanding existing ones because, on a typical day, half of the hospital beds in Virginia are empty.
The state issues certificates of public need to determine how badly an area needs a new medical care facility, Parker said.
"Excess resources drive up the cost of care," he said. "The medical care market doesn't respond in normal terms of supply and demand and it distorts the market. The certificate of public need process applies kind of an external control, trying not to let a distorted market create a wild duplication of resources."
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