REACHING NEW HEIGHTS IN HEALTH CARE: BUILDING TO HOUSE OFFICES, SERVICES

By J. Griffin Coop/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

A new medical office building near Jefferson Regional Medical Center should be completed next year, according to JRMC President and Chief Executive Officer Robert P. Atkinson.

Atkinson spoke to the Pine Bluff Rotary Club on Tuesday in the Hensley Conference Center at JRMC.

The three-story, 53,000-square-foot office building will house the hospital's Comprehensive Outpatient Cardiology Center on the first floor, offering a "full array of cardiology services," Atkinson said.

The second and third floors of the building will be used for physician office space, because the hospital is running low on such spaces.

"We are trying to find enough locations to put them," Atkinson said of the physicians. "We just don't have any more room."

The building's shell, which will cost about $4.2 million, should be completed by November. The building's interior, which will cost about $3 million, should be completed by March.

Atkinson highlighted various services offered at the hospital, including JRMC's status as the first hospital in Arkansas to offer minimally invasive hip surgery. The hospital purchased a new operating room table for the procedure, which is easier and less painful than other types of hip surgery.

The hospital is also one of the first in the state to offer kyphoplasty, which helps patients who have fractures along their vertebrae.

The hospital is also home to the state's first 64-slice cardiovascular CT scanner, which offers better speed and image quality than other scanners. Fewer than 100 of these scanners are in operation throughout the world, Atkinson said.

"The image quality is just unbelievable," Atkinson said. "It's like something out of a textbook."

Through a partnership with Hospice Home Care of Little Rock, JRMC opened the first inpatient hospice center in Southeast Arkansas in the past year. The center tends to the physical and emotional needs of terminally ill patients and their family members.

"If there is anything we do poorly in America, it's take care of people who are terminally ill," Atkinson said. "I think our medical community is kind of geared to life-saving and heroic efforts. ... We need to get them to a hospice program where they can get all the resources for health and education for not just the patients but also the families."