Bedford County Medical Center Opens New 60-Bed Hospital
The foundation for the Bedford County Medical Center’s new facility may be from bricks and mortar.
But the lifeblood of the hospital is its efficiency and the experience and compassion of its staff.
Those are the traits that Community Health Systems brings as the new owner of BCMC‚ according to the hospital’s CEO‚ Bill Macri. The Brentwood‚ Tenn.-based company purchased BCMC from Bedford County in July 2005‚ and Macri says the future of health care looks bright for Shelbyville and the surrounding area.
“[CHS has] a lot of expertise in bringing a system to hospitals to make the process of taking care of patients better‚” Macri says. “And that’s what they bring to us. They have all that knowledge and all those systems‚ so we’re much more efficient‚ and we do a much better job of taking care of patients.
“They not only bring those systems to us‚ but they also bring the resources to be able to care for patients. They’ve re-invested this facility in terms of capital‚ equipment and patient care systems that directly affect our ability to care for patients.”
The current BCMC facility dates back nearly 56 years‚ and Bedford County commissioners have recognized the need for a new building for some time. The county knew it wasn’t in condition to undertake such a massive project‚ so it made the decision to sell the medical center to CHS.
“I think they did the right thing‚” Macri says. “They knew it had to be done‚ and they found a partner that had the same idea as they did [about a new facility].”
CHS owns 74 hospitals in 22 states‚ and all are in similar non-urban areas such as Shelbyville.
BCMC’s new facility‚ which will cost $35 million to build‚ is expected to be completed by late summer or early fall of 2008. Groundbreaking on the site located at Airport Business Park across from Shelbyville Municipal Airport is planned for early 2007.
“It will be a building much different than the one we’re in now‚” Macri says. “It will be a modern health-care facility and will have all the integrated information systems. It will be designed for the best patient flow possible.”
All the patient rooms in the 60-bed hospital will be on one floor. The facility will be designed to offer the utmost in outpatient care‚ according to Macri.
“We’re real excited about it‚” he says. “[The current] facility is just not conducive to getting patients around‚ and the new facility will be basically seamless.”
