Novant Health is planning a $50 million expansion to its Kernersville Medical Center.
The expansion would add about 60,000 square feet to the facility.
Among the new additions would be a maternity and delivery center. Currently, all of Novant's area birthing services are done at Forsyth Medical Center.
Kirsten Royster is president and chief operating officer of the Kernersville hospital. She says an influx of young people into the area drove the decision to add a birthing center.
“We do believe that having a smaller setting will make Kernersville Medical Center attractive for delivering mothers and families,” she says. “So we felt that would be a good addition to our facility.”
Royster says the new facility would focus on low-risk births. The Kernersville location opened ten years ago and serves primarily people in eastern Forsyth and western Guilford counties.
She says the uncertainties of the pandemic have made planning an expansion challenging.
“We are here to improve the health of our communities and thinking about expansion, whether there's a pandemic or not, we have to serve the broader community,” she says. “So the pandemic has been and still is an extremely large part of our focus as a health system related to our patients. But there's a very large number of non-covid patients that we have an obligation to take care of.”
Before any of the expansion can happen, though, Novant will need approval from state regulators. It has filed two certificate-of-need requests with the North Carolina Division of Health Service Regulation.
Royster says a public hearing will be held in March and she expects a decision in August.