AdventHealth Announces Plan to Apply for Additional Hospital Beds for Buncombe County

AdventHealth is excited to announce it is planning to submit a Certificate of Need (CON) application to bring an additional 26 acute care beds to the region. Our application will outline the plan for bringing our Whole Person Care philosophy of treating the body, mind, and spirit of everyone who walks through our doors to the people of Buncombe, Graham, Madison and Yancey Counties and surrounding communities.

At AdventHealth, it’s our promise to help you feel whole. This commitment is why AdventHealth ranks in the top quartile nationally for outstanding patient care and safety and it will drive all we do to care for people in our new hospital.

AdventHealth’s proposal is to add 26 beds to the community hospital it is building in north Buncombe County. The new CON will expand access to the care the new hospital will offer including emergency, surgery, labor and delivery, and support services to people living in communities near the location off US 25/70, west of I-26 in Weaverville.

Why 26-beds

Earlier this year, the state outlined the need for 26 acute care beds in its annual State Medical Facilities Plan (SMFP). The SMFP is a crucial planning resource for health care development across the state. The plan compiles data on several factors including the use of and demand for health care resources in state-defined regions. The NC Department of Health and Human Services releases the plan each year. This year, the SMFP determined Buncombe, Graham, Madison and Yancey Counties will need an additional 26 acute care beds by 2026.

The deadline to submit the CON application for these 26 acute care beds is June 17, 2024.

AdventHealth Services at Buncombe County Hospital

AdventHealth intends to include these additional beds in the hospital the state approved it to build in 2022. This will be a community hospital with in-patient, surgical, labor and delivery, and emergency care. The hospital will include access to whole-person care through the following services:

• The Baby Place – Labor and Delivery Unit featuring 13 beds and a dedicated C-section Surgery Suite
• 42 Medical/Surgical Beds
• 12 Intensive Care Beds
• 18 Observation Beds
• A state-of-the-art Surgery Suite for general and specialty procedures with 5 procedure rooms
• Emergency Department with 12 beds
• Imaging Services
• Ancillary Services including Laboratory, Pharmacy and In-patient Therapy

AdventHealth will finalize the distribution of the additional beds in the hospital as it works to finalize the new 26-bed CON application.

Location

The NC State Medical Facilities Plan outlined the importance of improving access to care for the citizens of the four counties in the designated service area. As it is working to finalize the application for the 26 additional beds, AdventHealth is building on the conversations and data highlighting the importance of not duplicating services that helped determine the choice of north Buncombe County for the new hospital. Bringing the additional beds to the new hospital ensures increased access where there currently is no coverage.

AdventHealth is building on the relationships that have grown out of the listening sessions it held during the work on the 67-bed hospital CON. Members of our Leadership Team continue to visit people living and working throughout the acute care service area of Buncombe, Graham, Madison and Yancey Counties to learn more about each community’s unique health care needs. These conversations continue to provide profound insight into the public’s growing desire for additional health care choice and competition in Western North Carolina.

Based on those conversations, population data, hospital usage and land availability, AdventHealth determined Buncombe County to be the most effective geographical location for the multi-county service area. The plan we intend to outline in the application will place these 26 additional beds at the location of our new hospital along US 25/70, west of I-26 in Weaverville in north Buncombe County.

Community Support

With the announcement of our intention to apply for the Certificate of Need for these additional beds, we have once again received incredible community support. AdventHealth is honored to already have multiple letters of support from county leaders in the designated service area. We intend to include these letters with the application submission.

Other members of these communities have the opportunity to share their comments as we prepare to submit the application on June 17, 2024, and during the public comment window which opens on July 1, 2024. If you would like to share your support for this additional choice in health care for the region, you may submit a letter to the Certificate of Need Chief, Micheala Mitchell at micheala.mitchell@dhhs.nc.gov or 2704 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-2704.