South MVH facility to add beds, change name
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
CENTERVILLE — Local emergency patients seem to be getting the message: Miami Valley South Health Center is ready to accommodate them south of Interstate 675, off Wilmington Pike.
In response, the Premier Health Partners facility is adding "short-stay" beds and changing the facility's name to Miami Valley Hospital South.
Miami Valley Hospital on Wyoming Street has the busiest emergency department in Ohio, said Bobbie Gerhart, the hospital's chief operating officer. She said about 90,000 people have visited that emergency room in the first nine months of 2008.
The Miami Valley South Health Center eases some of that burden. Since the 268,000-square-foot building opened a year ago, more than 29,000 patients have visited the facility and nearly 18,000 patients have relied on its emergency room.
Adding beds to the south facility answers physician requests and eases transportation demands on ambulances and the CareFlight helicopter, said Gerhart and Nancy Thickel, a spokeswoman for Premier Health Partners, an association that includes both Miami Valley facilities.
That the Centerville facility draws patients is no surprise, Gerhart said.
"I think it's the fact that it's convenient to the community," she said. "The fact that it's very little wait."
The name change strengthens the link to the older facility and establishes the fact that it will be a hospital, Thickel said.
Ten short-stay beds will be added to the facility by the second quarter of 2009, Thickel said. There are no short-stay beds there today. Short stays are defined as 72 or fewer hours.
Premier includes Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton, Atrium Medical Center in Middletown and other area medical facilities.
"The opening of Miami Valley South Health Center has been a boon to the residents of Centerville and surrounding communities," Greg Horn, Centerville city manager, said in a statement from Premier.
Miami Valley Hospital has 760 staffed beds, served by 5,800 employees and 1,100 physicians. Working at the Centerville facility are about 200 employees.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
