Cone Health is taking a new approach to health care.
At its new $97 million MedCenter Greensboro at Drawbridge Parkway, Cone is combining wellness practices with primary and preventative care.
While it is Cone Health’s fifth MedCenter, it is the first 2.0 version of the concept. The 160,000-square-foot building at the intersection of Battleground Avenue and Drawbridge Parkway – just off Interstate 840 — encompasses myriad medical and well-being services.
The MedCenter offers core medical services such as emergency department, primary care and behavioral health, a cancer treatment center, obstetrics and gynecology, imaging and lab services and sports medicine in addition to wellness components including a fitness center, three swimming pools for aquatic therapy, outpatient rehabilitation, children’s programming, a pharmacy, a teaching kitchen and a café featuring healthy foods.
“This represents a new direction for Cone Health,” CEO Mary Jo Cagle said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the emergency department in March. “Not only is being right on the urban loop very convenient for consumers, but anyone needing rehabilitation or follow-up care with a doctor can find it right here in the same building.”
Aaron Saunders, executive director of the MedCenter Greensboro at Drawbridge, noted that the whole point is to create convenience by being able to take care of multiple items in one trip, save time and, most importantly, have integrated teams so the outcome of care is better.
The first part of the MedCenter Greensboro to open was the Sagewell Health & Fitness center, which came online Jan. 3 and already has over 1,100 enrolled members.
In some ways, Sagewell operates like a typical gym; it is open to everyone, whether they are an existing Cone patient or not. An out-of-pocket membership costs $55 for one person per month, $80 for two people and $110 for a family, including babysitting services.
But unlike a gym, members have access to a medically backed and exercise-educated team. Each member will be physically assessed when they enroll so that the team can help with a member’s health and fitness goals and can perform follow-up assessments. The gym also includes two exercise studios and hosts educational workshops and exercise classes.
Integrated into the gym, the outpatient rehabilitation center opened in February and was at full capacity within four weeks.
Behind the gym is a four-lane lap pool and a smaller pool for warm water physical therapy. There are 10 water therapists who began services in February. Saunders noted that there are not many water therapy services in Greensboro, making the MedCenter unique.
There is also a “no-guilt” option for child services. Currently, the MedCenter offers babysitting for infants through 10 year olds, either with a family gym membership or for $8 per hour. The rest of the children’s play space is being operationalized now to open in May and the MedCenter is building programming for children on how to build healthy habits.
Nutrition will also be integrated into the MedCenter with a teaching kitchen, where people can take cooking classes, and a café that offers health food. The kitchen is under construction and is scheduled to be finished in June. Saunders said that the MedCenter is also looking to hire a nutritionist.
The MedCenter also houses its own pharmacy, which not only has prescription medicine but is stocked with other necessities that a patient might need to get at a typical pharmacy. The pharmacy also just began offering Covid-19 vaccines, too.
A comprehensive cancer center opened on April 4. The center does screening, chemotherapy and infusions in its 20 treatment bays and has 12 exam rooms.
Primary care, including sports medicine, opened at the end of February, with cardiology and pulmonary still to open. All primary care providers are new hires, while the rest of the MedCenter’s staff is a mix of existing Cone Health providers and new hires. The MedCenter has the capacity for 10 providers on each level. Behavioral health is also integrated into primary to battle the stigma of behavioral health issues.
The MedCenter has an imaging center and an OB/GYN department.
The building even has its own pneumatic tube system – like banks use – to send a patient’s blood sample to the appropriate department or level.
The ground floor of the building is home to the fully equipped, 16-bed emergency department. The emergency department also has its own entrance for ease of access and 24-hour security onsite.
The MedCenter began taking EMS traffic on April 1 and has its own ambulances running, too. If patients need to be admitted to a hospital, the emergency department staff will stabilize them and then transport them to a hospital using Cone’s CareLink transport services.
Construction of two additional administrative offices in the building began recently as well.
In designing the building, Saunders said that the idea was to make it “more hospitality than hospital.”
That idea can be seen in the design choices in the waiting rooms, he noted, with modern, different seating options. The only “hospital-like” part of the building is the emergency department.
Cone also wanted to bring the outside in, seen in the main lobby’s tree structure and the colors and images throughout the building. The artwork on each floor also highlights a local artist.
The MedCenter was also designed with the ease of the patient in mind – even the attached parking deck. The parking deck lines up to the building and has an entrance on each floor so that a cancer patient, for example, can park on the second floor and walk right into the cancer center. The ground floor of the parking deck also has a drive-thru pharmacy window.
Cone is thinking about how to utilize the MedCenter Greensboro to collaborate with community partners, such as local schools, support groups and how to make spaces within the MedCenter open for community events and meetings. Saunders said it is already collaborating with Well-Spring, a retirement community down the road.
Saunders emphasized the location of this MedCenter, which sits just off Battleground Avenue and I-840. There are several others, but not one that could be easily accessed outside of the city’s center. The other MedCenters are in Mebane, Kerserville, High Point and a women’s one near downtown Greensboro.
“[We looked at] how do we take things out of the middle of Greensboro and bring them into the community,” Saunders said.
Editor’s note: Aaron Saunders is the husband of TBJ Events Director Kristen Saunders.
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