Doctors Hospital Nelsonville ends inpatient care services starting Oct. 15. Nelsonville and O’Bleness plan to integrate services.
Doctors Hospital Nelsonville will no longer be a hospital after Oct. 15.
OhioHealth announced in a news release this week that the hospital will end all inpatient care services after Oct. 15. Any patient that needs overnight care will have to go to nearby O’Bleness Hospital in Athens, which is about a 15 minute drive from Nelsonville.
Once Doctors Hospital closes, O’Bleness will be the last remaining hospital in the county.
Emergency services at the health provider in Nelsonville will remain open on site, including physician offices for primary care physicians and visiting specialists, imaging services, lab services, outpatient rehab, physical therapy, occupational therapy and an emergency department.
But Doctors Hospital Nelsonville will change its commercial name to OhioHealth Nelsonville Medical and Emergency Services.
A new Outpatient Health and Urgent Care Center is planned to be built in Nelsonville beginning in 2015 and is expected to be completed by the middle of 2016.
Since Doctors Hospital Nelsonville will no longer legally be considered a hospital, processes such as licensing, physician credentialing and billing will need to be done through O'Bleness.
Cheryl Herbert, Senior Vice President of OhioHealth, explained in the news release that the two facilities will be integrating their leadership teams as well.
“Having one leadership team overseeing all of OhioHealth’s services in Southeast Ohio will simplify operations, communications and, ultimately, improve care to our patients,” she stated in the release.
After Greg Long’s resignation last month as the President of O’Bleness, LaMar Wyse, current chief operating officer at Doctors Hospital Nelsonville, has accepted the addition role of interim president of O’Bleness.
Though he’s practiced medicine in Athens County for decades, Dr. James Gaskell — Athens City-County Health Department Health Commissioner — said he understands why Doctors Hospital is downsizing.
“They have had decreased numbers of admissions... it’s difficult for them to survive economically,” Gaskell said.
A June OhioHealth release indicated Doctors Hospital had an inpatient census of about four patients daily.
Gaskell spent the majority of his career at O’Bleness and spent some time in the early 1970s at Nelsonville working in pediatric clinics.
“Sometimes these things are economically allocated and not given enough business to support the institution,” Gaskell said.
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