Mon Health System received its Certificate of Need from the West Virginia Health Care Authority to proceed with plans to construct a $20 million, small format hospital in Fairmont.
Mon Health CEO David Goldberg said the next step is to put the project out for bid.
Construction, he said, should take 16 months to complete.
“We’ll be open by the end of the year 2021,” he said.
The 10-bed hospital, dubbed Mon Health Marion Neighborhood Hospital, will be constructed on land the health system already owns along Interstate 79 near Fresenius Kidney Care in Pleasant Valley.
Small format hospitals are accredited by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to offer hospital-based services that include inpatient and outpatient medical beds, diagnostic imaging and lab services and full-service emergency services. The hospital will not have an operating room, a Cath lab or offices, Goldberg said.
When it is up and running, it will be the first small format hospital in West Virginia, several of which already exist in the Greater Pittsburgh area. More than 100 people are expected to work at the facility, Goldberg said.
The Fairmont area has been without a full-service hospital since the 207-bed Fairmont Regional Medical Center was closed in March by its California-based owner, Alecto Healthcare Services, after it could not find a buyer for the facility. Alecto said the hospital lost $19 million in three years.
West Virginia University Medicine will begin using a portion of the shuttered Fairmont Regional later this year after it receives its separate CON from the state Health Care Authority. That facility will act as an arm of J.W. Ruby Memorial, WVU Medicine’s flagship hospital.
WVU Medicine also filed for a second CON from the state to construct a 25-bed, full-service hospital next to its Urgent Care Center at the Gateway Connector, a $35.3 million project estimated to take 18 to 24 months to complete.
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