WVU Medicine expands almost a year after plan was announced to take over Fairmont hospital
Mar. 5—FAIRMONT — When Fairmont Regional Medical Center closed last year, months later WVU Medicine stepped in to open Fairmont Medical Center.
Cari Morgan, nursing director for the facility, which opened in mid-2020, said there was a void in health care in the community when the former facility closed. Now, WVU Medicine is filling that void.
"Our main goal was to get emergency services provided as quickly as possible to this community which we did so starting June 30," said Morgan.
The facility has grown since then, after officials conducted a needs assessment of the community. Morgan said officials realized there needed to be a better way to treat higher acuity patients along with providing step-down capability.
"We noticed a void for cardiology so we got cardiology on sight with HVI clinic on the fourth floor. We've expanded our imaging services with MRI and ultrasound and we will be starting out patient phlebotomy here shortly," she said.
Aaron Yanuzo, assistant vice president for support services at Fairmont Medical Center, said he is excited for the hospital reaching this level of service to the community.
"We're very happy. We're happy with the success and the patients that are here and we're hopeful that we'll continue to grow and get more inpatients," said Yanuzo.
Morgan said she's proud of the expansion. She said Fairmont is her community and where she lives so health care was very important for her and her family.
"From a nursing perspective, this is our purpose. This is why we're here. It's to care for the community and we intend to do so and continue to do so and just expand our services to meet the needs," said Morgan.
The new services offered by Fairmont Medical Center include ultrasound, MRI and inpatient consulting for cardiology patients.
"We've also established a lot of telemedicine services in connection with Ruby [Memorial Hospital]," said Yanuzo.
The facility has X-ray and CT services for in-patient needs and will start offering outpatient CT and X-ray services. The MRI unit opened in February and offers outpatient MRI. All the physician interpretations are the same offered to patients at J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown.
As far as heart and vascular services, Yanuzo said, any practices that happen at Ruby also have been brought to Fairmont.
"We have a cardiologist that's on staff. We have multiple nurse practitioners that are here and we have a vascular surgeon that rotates in through here as well," he said.
Jennifer Gerdes, administrator for WVU Medicine's Heart and Vascular Institute South/West said the vascular center moved into the facility on Locust Avenue on March 1.
"We're going to start offering vascular services on March 15 with one of our vascular surgeons...been very successful so far. Patients really love it. We're providing a great service to Marion County by being here," said Gerdes.
Yanuzo said patients can usually get same day or next day care with all the new services. He said it's a great ability to get patients their care more quickly.
Morgan said as bed count has been upgraded, so have the monitors in the facility. She said now they tote Philips monitors which allow higher acuity patients to be taken care of.
"Actually Ruby monitors our patients via satellite so we are truly a campus of Ruby," she said.
Ultimately as the facility expands Fairmont Medical Center will have 42 beds available for patients. Yanuzo said the community is grateful for the opportunity to see a doctor in their own neighborhood.
"We weren't even open an hour the first day we were here and we actively resuscitated a patient that probably would not have made it if we were not here to provide that service," said Morgan.
Reach Sarah Marino at 304-367-2549
