MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – WVU Hospitals, Inc., has received Certificate of Need (CON) approval from the West Virginia Health Care Authority on two projects in Marion County.
The first approval, issued on May 6, is to open an emergency department and provide 10 inpatient acute care beds at the existing Fairmont Regional Medical Center facility as well as provide on-site imaging, including x-ray, ultrasound, and computed tomography (CT), and laboratory services. This location, which will be named Fairmont Medical Center, will operate as a campus of WVU Medicine J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital and be staffed by Ruby-based providers.
The second approval, issued this week, is to build a new hospital near the current WVU Medicine outpatient center off of the Fairmont Gateway Connector with a projected opening of mid-2022. When opened, this new hospital, Fairmont Gateway Medical Center, will be the first phase of WVU Hospitals’ new development at the Fairmont Gateway Connector providing emergency department services and 25 inpatient acute care beds. Services provided at the existing WVU Medicine Gateway clinic include primary care; Obstetrics and Gynecology; specialty care, including Behavioral Medicine, Cardiology, Digestive Diseases, Nephrology, Orthopaedics, Podiatry, Pulmonary Medicine, Sleep Disorders, Surgery, and Urology; Urgent Care; and diagnostic services, including lab testing, mammography, ultrasound, and x-ray.
“We are grateful for the West Virginia Health Care Authority’s approval of our plans, and we are excited to ensure that the residents of Marion County continue to have access to emergency department and inpatient services close to home,” Albert L. Wright, Jr., president and CEO of the West Virginia University Health System, said. “We appreciate the excitement and anticipation the community has already shown for these projects, and we look forward to seeing them come to fruition.”
Wright, Gov. Jim Justice, and Gordon Gee, WVU president and chair of the WVU Health System Board of Directors, announced the System’s plans for the Fairmont area at a press conference on March 13.
The West Virginia University Health System, the state’s largest health system and largest private employer, is comprised of 11 hospitals – its flagship hospital, J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown; Berkeley Medical Center in Martinsburg; Braxton County Memorial Hospital in Gassaway; Camden Clark Medical Center in Parkersburg; Jackson General Hospital in Ripley; Jefferson Medical Center in Ranson; Potomac Valley Hospital in Keyser; Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Glen Dale; St. Joseph’s Hospital in Buckhannon; Summersville Regional Medical Center in Summersville; and United Hospital Center in Bridgeport. It also provides management services to Barnesville Hospital in Barnesville, Ohio; Garrett Regional Medical Center in Oakland, Maryland; Harrison Community Hospital in Cadiz, Ohio; Highland-Clarksburg Hospital in Clarksburg; Wetzel County Hospital in New Martinsville; and Wheeling Hospital in Wheeling. The WVU Health System also includes five institutes – the WVU Cancer Institute, the WVU Critical Care and Trauma Institute, the WVU Eye Institute, the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute, and the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute.
For more information, visit WVUMedicine.org.