BRIDGEPORT, W. Va. — After years of planning and construction, United Hospital Center CEO Bruce Carter was able to show the public around the new United Orthopaedic and Spine Center Thursday.
“Whenever you do the ribbon cutting, this is a celebration,” he said. “It’s always fun to get to the end and finally see the fruits of your labor.”
When the facility –which will be named after Carter, who will retire on Friday– opens up to patients on April 13, it will house the hospital’s Orthopaedics, Neurosurgery, Spine Care and Pain Management and United Rehab departments.
“We’re really lucky,” Carter said. “It’s rare that you see these [facilities], because you don’t usually don’t get the opportunity to cohabitate these three disciplines in one building.”
He believes related disciplines steps away from one another will help prevent what he described as one of the biggest problems in medicine, breakdowns in communication between a patient’s doctors as multiple conference rooms allow the specialists to discuss treatment options regularly.
The $15 million, 57,000 square foot facility won’t change the services provide currently, but improves upon them by creating a one-stop shop for patients.
“It’s a great opportunity for patients in our community,” Michael Tillman, hospital administrator —and Carter’s named replacement— said. “They can come into this one facility with muscular skeletal problems, let’s say back pain, and get a holistic treatment, a plan of care that’s developed by physical therapists, neurosurgeons, orthopedic doctors and we can take care of the whole person.”
As Carter walked around the facility Thursday, looking at services such as Orthopaedic Rehabilitation, Aquatic Therapy, Certified Hand Rehabilitation and others will be administered, he was pleased with the results.
“It’s greater than I thought it would be,” Carter said. “A lot of credit has to go to the managers, the staff and the doctors that worked on the design, the architectural firm Gresham Smith [and Partners], they did a nice job designing this and Mark Landau, the contractor.”