CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. — Atrium Health wants to bring mobile hospital hubs to western North Carolina, and Channel 9 got a look at a new prototype that could bring cancer care to places like Cleveland County.
Teams saw the prototype for the first time this month. There is an X-ray machine back there, and it can be parked in someone’s driveway or at town hall.
One woman in Kingstown told Channel 9’s Ken Lemon that the unit’s placement means the difference between life or death.
This mobile hospital with monitors and labs is designed to help people like Gloria Gentry, who has survived two strokes and worries about another.
“Getting care in a timely manner is critical in a lot of cases between life and death,” Gentry told Channel 9.
Gentry lives in Kingstown, a small community in the western end of upper Cleveland County, and she said ambulance services aren’t close.
“Then you’ve got a 15 20-minute ride to the hospital. Then you have lost a lot of time before you get the care you need,” Gentry said.
Atrium Health plans to put what they call a fully electric mobile hospital hub like this in her community. Federal funding will pay for three units like this with hospital-level diagnostics and treatment for people in rural communities without hospitals nearby.
“This is bringing those resources, tools, clinicians, personnel right to the doorstep of where our patients are,” said Jonathan Collier, the vice president of Atrium Health Mobile Medicine.
The hubs will focus on acute care and Atrium will become the first provider with mobile cancer care including chemotherapy for rural cancer patients.
“Quality healthcare is only as what people have access to,” said Tiffany Crank with the Atrium Community Advisory Board.
The hubs will be stationed in an area for a week or two at a time in rural communities stretching from the piedmont to Asheville.
Hospital officials told Channel 9 there won’t be any additional cost for this service. Atrium says the first unit will roll out by the end of the year.
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