Norton Healthcare cuts ribbon on Jeffersonville facility
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Officials from Norton Healthcare cut the ribbon Thursday on the new, $17 million Norton Medical Center in Jeffersonville.
The Louisville, Kentucky-based health system is adding 40 jobs at the facility, which includes a full-service emergency department and diagnostic center and complements Norton Clark Hospital on the city’s south side.
“The vision was really to create a hub or a service area for patients to be able to…come and get emergency department services and outpatient diagnostic services as a starting point,” said Kathleen Exeline, interim chief administrative officer for Norton.
Exeline told Inside INdiana Business the facility provides an additional opportunity for emergency care in a corridor that is seeing “bursting growth.”
“Emergency department choices are a bit limited,” she said. “So this really expands that opportunity for us to be able to house in this space the Norton facility for patients that are traveling down that corridor to be able to stop and get outpatient diagnostic care, as well as emergency department care.”
The 15,000-square-foot Norton Medical Center is located 2023 Mercy Way near the intersection of Interstate 265 and East 10th Street. Exeline said they plan to see their first radiology patients at the facility next week, with the emergency department opening on March 4.
The emergency department will have eight exam rooms with the ability to convert one into a trauma bay if needed. It will also have a lab and access to the adjoining diagnostic center that will include X-ray, CT, ultrasound, screening 3D mammography and MRI capabilities.
The center also houses a primary care office, and plans are in place to open an outpatient behavioral health office at the location to provide acute mental health care.
Exeline said the health system is always looking at how it can maximize its current footprint, and having many of these services in one building will be key to providing care.
“For example, this facility will house a stat lab for the emergency department and be able to, certainly, if there’s care that’s needed on an emergency basis, [patients] can have those radiology procedures done at that time, but also kept for follow-up care if there’s additional procedures that are needed, that are ordered by their primary care physician or their specialist,” she said. “They’re going to know that location and be able to jump right over and get that care taken care of there as well.”
Exeline said finding the talent needed for the facility is challenging, but she is confident they’ll be able to attract all the people they need.
“We see the Norton brand–and really the way in which we treat our employees and our family environment–really attracts a lot of talent,” she said. “We’re paying a lot of attention not only into our recruitment efforts, but how do we retain those employees and really create lifelong professionalism within any job and career that people choose at Norton Healthcare.”
North Healthcare employs about 21,000 people across its entire footprint. In Indiana, the health system also operates hospitals in Madison, Jeffersonville, and Scottsburg, as well as five Louisville-area hospitals.