After more than a year of analysis, officials at Greensboro, N.C.-based Cone Health are expected to recommend the 2019 closure of its freestanding Women's Hospital, according to a Triad Business Journal report.
At a Sept. 28 board meeting, officials are expected to recommend the hospital close in 2019, after which services will relocate to its crosstown affiliate, Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro.
The strategy— which involved more than a year of study with consultants — isn't a final decision, according to the report. "I think it's going to be a recommendation," Cone Health CEO Tim Rice told the TBJ. "It appears that's the direction we're taking."
There's another recommendation expected from Cone Health officials: To relocate outpatient behavioral health services from the system's behavioral health hospital to other locations in the community while considering the building of a new behavioral health hospital in 2019.
Mr. Rice said relocating outpatient behavioral health services could better integrate them with other services while examining the community's inpatient needs. This strategy would help determine what kind of facility would be needed and where it will be located, according to the report.
Cone Health's women's and behavioral health hospitals were built in the 1970s and acquired by the system in 1988 and 2001, respectively.