Refining the Healthplex

Stan Taylor is vice president of corporate planning.

As the Triangle Business Journal and the News & Observer have both reported, WakeMed purchased 12.5 acres of land in Brier Creek at the southwest corner of TW Alexander Drive and ACC Boulevard for our next healthplex facility.

The new Brier Creek Healthplex will include a stand-alone emergency department with 14 beds, and will be very similar to our emergency departments at WakeMed North Healthplex and WakeMed Apex Healthplex. 

It will feature the same 24 hour-a-day, 7 day-a-week full-service emergency department coverage by board certified physicians and will be supported by laboratory and imaging services.   

We continue to refine the healthplex model.  The Brier Creek Healthplex will be approximately 28,000 square feet, which is smaller than our previous projects.  What we have learned from our previous two healthplexes is that if we invest in a full-service emergency department, then private developers will step in to build physician office space surrounding our EDs. 

This is a smart use of WakeMed’s resources, making a smaller (although still substantial) investment to bring a needed service to a community while allowing private developers to fund additional office space in the surrounding area – often even on the same partial of land.

We expect to break ground this fall and anticipate completion in October 2011, and fully expect the WakeMed Brier Creek Healthplex to be as successful as our healthplexes in North Raleigh and Apex.