In March 2015, with my board’s support, we kicked off a strategic planning process that was designed to really set the roadmap for the future of the hospital. It was funny, I remember when I started in healthcare almost 20 years ago, we would sit down, and we would do 10-year strategic plans and “Where are we going to be in 10 years?” Well, we don’t do that anymore. We think about the next three to five years. That was really the purpose of the strategic plan. What is the roadmap of our organization and where do we want to go?
It was a six-month planning process that included many community leaders. It included hospital staff, it included members of our board and it included our physicians. As a result of that process, we are really focusing our initiatives and our efforts in three key areas. I wanted to share that with you tonight. The first and foremost area that were focused on is the growth of primary care, really expanding primary care in this community. And as you may know, we have two primary care practices. We have Advanced Primary Care in Whiteville and in Tabor City. We’ve been adding new providers to those primary care clinics, but one of the things that we realized is that, as the community grows, we need to grow and expand geographically.
We are beginning to look at — where is our third primary care location going to be? As we look at segments of the community, there are really one to two areas that really stand out for us, because in order to really support a primary care practice, you’ve really got to have the community at the volume to support that. We are beginning to look and assess at the Lake Waccamaw, sort of the Bolton, area and try to understand what our opportunities are there. We had a really good community forum there last week. A lot of interest and participation in looking at that area.
We’ll continue to assist that, but that is going to be our goal for 2016, to really define where is our next primary care location.
CEO Carla Hollis outlines the primary focus of a three- to five-year plan for Columbus Regional, as the result of a six-month planning process.
Hollis explains that the first area that they want to expand services in is Primary Care, with the location of a third primary care location being prominent. She explained that CRHS is considering the Lake Waccamaw, Bolton area, but will continue to assess beneficial areas for a third location within the remainder of 2016.
