POWERGRAMS

34 C urtis James carries an iPad as he walks with a Brasfield & Gorrie foreman through every room of the 68,320-square-foot hospital where scores of workers are busy puing finishing touches on walls, floors, ceilings, lights and high-tech aspects required of modern medical facilities. "This is going to be very special," James says as he compares the ongoing construction to an architect's 3D concept of a completed Thomasville Regional Medical Center (TRMC), the $40.5 million initial effort James is heading. On May 1, air conditioning was turned on as the countdown toward an October opening approached. It was easier than ever to see the state's newest hospital becoming what James and a coalition of backers have long envisioned. During this decade, more than 100 rural hospitals have closed across the nation, with 13 in Alabama shuing down in the past eight years alone, which is the third-highest number in America. Study aer study has shown the closures can cripple a community, costing crucial jobs, forcing sick and injured people to travel 30 minutes longer or more for health care, and oen puing economies in critical condition. The former CEO of St. Vincent's Health System in Birmingham, James has no intentions of creating a stop-gap facility to replace the Southwest Alabama Medical Center that went out of business eight years ago. The 29-bed TRMC rapidly nearing completion along U.S. 43 includes an adjacent 16,535-square-foot Medical Office Building. Blueprints for the 40-acre park show shadow expansion areas for a 15-bed wing addition, second major office structure, two senior living buildings for 45 residents, cancer treatment center and more parking spaces. "I've been in two communities where the hospitals closed," says recently retired Alabama Power Thomasville Office Manager Danny D'Andrea, who is chairman of the board of the Thomasville Chamber of Commerce. "This new hospital is huge for Thomasville, Clarke County and the surrounding counties and communities." Indeed, an economic feasibility study by Keivan Deravi of Auburn University at Montgomery found that TRMC will draw from a 40-mile radius population base of about 80,000, creating nearly 500 jobs in the region with an $80 million economic impact. Public officials recognized that value and are backing the hospital with tax credits, grants and loans, the largest being the city's $27 million, 30-year investment. "We're doing it differently than hospitals in the past, using a new business model," James says. "This is a true private-public partnership." James says the TRMC medical care will be the equal of any facility on any number of fronts, from the emergency room to outpatient surgery to security to food service and state-of-the-art equipment. An emergency helicopter and staff will be on site, providing the only other such care between Montgomery and Mobile. Patients and visitors will exit vehicles aer following a circular drive leading to a large canopy- covered area, entering TRMC beneath a 30-foot-tall windowed tower that stands over the admiing area and information desk. A spacious two-story hallway James compares iPad renderings to ongoing work in entrance hallway of hospital set to open in October.

• Cover