To: President Wall and Team Members of Cabarrus Memorial Hospital
From: Mr. Batte, Chairman of the Board
Re: The Case for Open Surgery at Cabarrus Memorial Hospital
Date: Friday, October 9, 2015
The purpose of this memo is to discuss and analyze the opportunity for Cabarrus Memorial Hospital (CMH) to apply for a certificate of need (CON) for an open-heart surgery program. CMH is an established public hospital, located in Cabarrus County North Carolina, which have been caregivers to the community since 1937.
Current Status
Currently, CMH possesses a cardiac program and has been steadily increasing its diagnostic and therapeutic cardiovascular services for the benefit of the community. The current scope of the cardiac program at CMH include emergency room staffed and equipped for treatment of cardiac emergencies, an eight-bed coronary care unit, cardiac catheterization, and cardiac rehabilitation. The current staffing of the cardiac program include one invasive cardiologist and three internists that specialized in treatment of heart diseases. A second invasive a cardiologist and another noninvasive cardiologist are expected to join the staff this coming year. However, CMH does not currently have a cardiac surgeon. There is a cardiac surgeon fellow who is hoping to come work as a cardiac surgeon at CMH, if the CON for the open-heart surgery program is approved. …show more content…
This would require one open-heart surgical suite for adult procedures, with the capacity of 400 procedures per year. It has been projected that after three years of operation (amount of time it will take to fully implement) the open-heart program would need three dedicated cardiac surgical ICU beds and seven telemetry beds in order to support the program. Existing space would need to be renovated to accommodate the new