{"id":51086,"date":"2022-09-20T09:50:58","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T13:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=51086"},"modified":"2022-09-20T09:51:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T13:51:01","slug":"christianacare-west-grove-campus-emergency-dept-site-wont-open-for-at-least-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=51086","title":{"rendered":"ChristianaCare: West Grove campus emergency dept. site won’t open for at least a year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The former Jennersville Hospital will reopen as a medical campus, operated by ChristianaCare. But the initial phase, which calls for emergency medicine, is still a year from opening, company officials say.<\/p><\/div>\n

Leaders from ChristianaCare and local elected officials provided an update last week on the status of the former Jennersville Hospital which the health care company purchased in June and expects to reopen on some basis \u2014 but the initial phase of what will be the ChristianaCare West Grove Campus, likely to include emergency medical care, but that is likely at least a year in the future before being ready to open.<\/p>\n

Since June when ChristianaCare announced the purchase of the former Jennersville Hospital from Tower Health, ChristianaCare leaders have been meeting regularly with community leaders and small groups to gain input into planning for what is now called the ChristianaCare West Grove Campus.<\/p>\n

The company shared shared new details about the planning process for the campus with Chester County business leaders at an event organized and led by State Rep. John Lawrence (R-13) and hosted at the Herr\u2019s Snack Factory visitor center auditorium.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a nonprofit health system, we have a mission of service to our neighbors\u2014and you are our neighbors. We are honored and so excited to be here to support your health needs in southern Chester County,\u201d said Douglas P. Azar, ChristianaCare senior vice president, strategic clinical integration.<\/p>\n

After a brief overview of ChristianaCare, Azar addressed the the West Grove plan and the timetable.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmergency services has quickly risen as the most significant need in this community,\u201d Azar said. \u201cIt continues to come up time and again in our discussions with the community that the most urgent need is emergency care. That\u2019s our first priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Azar explained that ChristianaCare plans to take a phased approach to development at the campus, and ChristianaCare\u2019s intent is to include emergency services in the first phase. Plans are in development now\u2014and they continue to be informed by what he and other ChristianaCare leaders are hearing from the community. He said that those plans will likely be finalized and shared with the community sometime later this fall.<\/p>\n

ChristianaCare opened a freestanding emergency department in Middletown, Delaware, in 2013, and Azar said that learnings from the success of that facility have been invaluable in planning for West Grove.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiddletown is a fantastic facility that is really beloved by the Middletown community. It\u2019s a great model, and there are many learnings from that model that are informing our planning for West Grove. However, the West Grove Campus will be unique, and we are using all of the good information we\u2019ve heard over the past several months to create a care model and structure that will best meet this community\u2019s needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Azar was joined by Chris Coletti, M.D., MHCDS, FACEP, FACP, clinical effectiveness officer and vice chair of Emergency Medicine, who talked about the kinds of care ChristianaCare is able to provide at the Middletown Emergency Department and how that might translate to what\u2019s being considered for the West Grove Campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an emergency medicine team working remotely from our main hospitals, we\u2019re really focused on meeting the needs of our patients, whatever they might be. Our team is incredibly skilled at that, and we\u2019re able to address a wide variety of needs right in the Emergency Department,\u201d Coletti said. He cited care for broken bones, heart attack and stroke as some of the capabilities that are available in an emergency care setting.<\/p>\n

The loss of Jennersville Hospital left southwest Chester County with no emergency medical care \u2014 patients must either go to Chester County Hospital in West Chester or to Lancaster County.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Jennersville Hospital closed, it was a gut-punch to this community,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cI as much as anyone would like the new facility opened tomorrow to restore needed services to our area. But it\u2019s even more important that it be done right, because this community deserves the highest quality of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re absolutely right,\u201d Azar said. \u201cWe\u2019re committed to opening the West Grove Campus as quickly as we can. At the same time, we\u2019re going to take the time to do this right so that you have a facility that is excellent\u2014and that you can be proud of in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he said it\u2019s too early to know when services will open at the West Grove Campus, it\u2019s unlikely that it will be within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

Azar provided some insight into the current state of the facility, based on ChristianaCare\u2019s assessments and inventory following the acquisition. While it does contain some usable equipment, including hospital beds and some imaging and diagnostic equipment, other aspects of the facility are going to be \u201cstarting from scratch.\u201d He said that the building currently contains no information technology infrastructure, and the laboratory is completely empty of equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m highlighting these as just a few examples to give you some insight into the complexity of the work ahead,\u201d Azar said. \u201cAs you know, supply chain issues are impacting every industry right now, and it\u2019s too early to know whether it will create significant delays or none at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Azar said that ChristianaCare is intent on listening to community members and learning from them what the needs are so that ChristianaCare can be the best possible partner. Following the brief presentation, he asked the audience to share their own concerns or recommendations.<\/p>\n

Audience members voiced their desire for the project to move swiftly, without sacrificing quality for speed. Several participants cited the need for behavioral health and addiction treatment services in the community, and the ChristianaCare leaders acknowledged that these are on the list of priorities for this campus, although likely not in phase one.<\/p>\n

Several members of the audience spoke as business owners about challenges related to workers\u2019 compensation care, which was a topic that the ChristianaCare representatives said they hadn\u2019t heard in previous discussions, and they\u2019d take that information back for further discussion.<\/p>\n

Audience members also cited the aging community and the need for services that support older adults.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaders from ChristianaCare and local elected officials provided an update last week on the status of the former Jennersville Hospital which the health care company purchased in June and expects to reopen on some basis \u2014 but the initial phase of what will be the ChristianaCare West Grove Campus, likely to include emergency medical care, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14732,14733,7426,10441,2397],"class_list":["post-51086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-christianacare","tag-emergency-medicine","tag-featured","tag-jennersville-hospital","tag-west-grove"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51087,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51086\/revisions\/51087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}