Lisa McCluskey

Encouraged by population growth in the Ooltewah area, Memorial Hospital plans to relocate its Gunbarrel Road imaging center to Mountain View Road.

“We need to locate our center where it’s convenient for our patients to access those services,” said Lisa McCluskey, vice president of marketing for Memorial.

Imaging services include MRI and CT scans, digital mammography, nuclear medicine and digital radiography.

The new imaging center will cost $14.3 million, hospital officials said.

Memorial officials said they’ve been encouraged by economic and population growth in Ootlewah, as well as optimism about growth that could be spurred by the Enterprise South industrial park, which Volkswagen is considering as a possible site for an assembly plant.

The hospital first considered moving to the area around 2001, when it purchased a 52-acre tract of land and received state approval for the project, said Sandra Curtis, executive director of strategic planning. Officials chose to defer the move and focus on improvements at the main campus on Desales Avenue, she said.

Approval for the move has lapsed, but Memorial intends to reapply to the state Health Services and Development Agency by July 15, and officials said they anticipate that the request again will be approved.

“Now it’s the appropriate time to move the project,” Ms. Curtis said.

Hamilton County Commissioner Bill Hullander, whose district includes the area where the center will be located, said the move is a good one.

“It’ll be in one of the fastest-growing areas of Hamilton County and it’ll be good not only for just the people in our district but all of Hamilton County,” he said. “That’s going to be a great location there. It’s in a convenient place right off the freeway and it’s in a growing area of Ooltewah.”

Construction likely will take about 18 months, but the hospital will have to wait about four months for the state to consider the hospital’s request for the project, Ms. McCluskey said.

In the past 12 months, the Health Services and Development Agency has received three requests from Tennessee hospitals to transfer services to a new center and two were approved, said Jim Christoffersen of the department.

Vanderbilt Medical Center received approval to move imaging services off-campus and Horizon Medical Center in Dickson, Tenn., moved its outpatient surgery to a satellite center, he said.

Comments