HEALTH & FITNESS
WellStar to expand with new openings
FACTBOX
WellStar Kennestone
FACTBOOK 2020 163
By Ross Williams
rwilliams@mdjonline.com
The state’s largest health
system is based in Cobb
County, and it is only getting
bigger with new openings
and planned expansions
across the county.
WellStar operates 11 hospitals
and eight urgent care
centers. Three hospitals are
located in Cobb — WellStar
Kennestone, WellStar Windy
Hill and WellStar Cobb in
Austell.
Perhaps the biggest
planned expansion is a new
four-story, $126 million
emergency department for
WellStar Kennestone set to
accept patients in spring
2020.
The most visible step in
creating that new department
came in March 2019, when
workers used a crane to lift
a two-story, 72.5-foot high,
129.5-foot long, 128-ton
bridge off of temporary supports,
rotate it and lower it
into place over Church Street.
The bridge will connect
the hospital to the new department.
Once everything was in
place, the crews accomplished
the engineering feat
in a little over 30 minutes,
including final checks on the
bridge and equipment. Once
the bridge was in the air, it
was only a minute or two before
it was in place and men
in bright yellow vests were
fastening it to its support
beams.
The existing emergency
department built in 1974 was
constructed to handle about
60,000 patient visits a year,
but the department has seen
twice that many people annually,
and in 2017, Kennestone
recorded 145,000 emergency
visits.
The size of the facility
will increase from 44,000
square feet of clinical space to
136,000, and the expansion
will allow the emergency room
to treat as many as 185,000
people annually. The four-story
building will include more
than 20,000 square feet on its
top two floors and another
91,000 square feet of parking,
making it one of the nation’s
five largest emergency departments.
“As a not-for-profit health
system, WellStar thoughtfully
reinvests in the creation of
healthier communities,” said
Mary Chatman, president of
WellStar Kennestone Hospital.
“This new facility will
better enable us to care for our
community. While the building
is impressive, we want to
continue to have the care we
provide be what we are known
for. Every day our patients and
families put their trust in us as
healthcare experts to deliver
high quality care with compassion.
This is our unwavering
commitment.”
WellStar Kennestone Emergency
Room patients per year:
140,373, making it the eighth
busiest in the country
WellStar Kennestone Pediatric
emergency patients per year:
20,381
Hospital beds: 633
Physicians in WellStar Clinical
Partners: 1,830
Nurses: 2,000
Total revenue: $1.2 Billion
link