CityView Magazine

S PECI A L PROMOTION S ECTION advertorial planning. planning. planning... you get one chance to do it right. building a hospital There are monumental tasks, and then there are monumental tasks. Building a hospital could certainly be con- sidered among the latter. Cape Fear Valley Health is set to begin con- struction on a new Hoke County facility that will not only make it the county's first full-service hospital, but also the crown jewel in the area's burgeoning healthcare landscape. But the facility is still just a visionary con- cept, more than a year away from opening its doors. No one knows this more than Steven Steinbacher of Criterion Health- care. "It's going to take a Herculean effort to build," said Steinbacher, the company's principal. "It's an extremely complicated process." The Charlotte-based consulting firm was hired to lead the project because of its proven track record in large-scale con- struction. Criterion helped build a new 4 | November/December • 2012 outpatient campus for Stanley Regional Medical Center in Locust and is helping develop a new 110-bed, post-acute care hospital for Appalachian Regional Health- care System in Boone. The Stanley Regional project is of particu- lar interest, since Criterion is also helping Cape Fear Valley build a new outpatient center of its own on U.S. 401. When com- plete, Health Pavilion Hoke will sit on a new 60-acre medical campus near the Hoke-Cumberland county line. Steinbacher said the site was chosen several years ago because it has plenty of room for growth. Cape Fear Valley intends to build its new hospital directly behind the outpa- tient center, which is slated to open early 2013. Construction may actually be the easiest part about building a new hospital. Getting state permission comes first and can take years to get approval. Such was the case with Cape Fear Valley's hospital request. CON Process Hospitals are extraordinarily expensive, so the state regulates their construction through the Certificate of Need (CON) process. The state first identifies areas that need hospitals through its annual State Medical Facilities plan. Healthcare systems and corporations must then prove to the state why they should be allowed to build any needed hospital. After a hospital application is submitted, a 30-day public comment period starts which allows anyone to file written letters of support. A public hearing soon follows. The state then reviews all applications for 90 to 150 days before deciding who should be allowed to build the hospital. If a third party wants to contest the decision, they can appeal within 30 days. This often can lead to legal challenges in court. State regulators originally approved Cape Fear Valley's Hoke hospital CON applica- tion three years ago. But legal wrangling with FirstHealth of the Carolinas, which cape fear v alley hoke heal thcare

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