WVU Medicine Reynolds, Wheeling Hospitals Combining Labor/Delivery Departments in Wheeling
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WHEELING -- WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial Hospital will consolidate its Labor and Delivery Department with WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital by the fall of this year.
WVU Medicine Reynolds will continue to offer prenatal and obstetrical care and gynecological care during the same clinic hours while the hospital's labor and delivery team will be integrated into the WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital Women's and Children's Team.
Each patient currently at WVU Medicine Reynolds will be contacted personally to discuss the changes and invited to attend an open house at WVU Medicine Wheeling.
WVU Medicine Reynolds can still deliver babies in the Emergency Department in the case of an emergency.
Albert Wright Jr., President and CEO of West Virginia University Health System, said the consolidation occurred due to the "changing dynamics in the Northern Panhandle." He outlined WVU Medicine is beginning to focus on creating "centers of excellence," with WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital now becoming a hub for labor and delivery in the panhandle.
"Many healthy, beautiful babies were born at Reynolds, but now, as we look at our dynamic, we decided to consolidate it with Wheeling since the two are pretty close together," Wright said. "We are starting to create centers of excellence where we can bring more resources into certain areas to allow for the best, optimized and safest patient care."
According to Wright, one aspect of labor and delivery at WVU Medicine Wheeling that will be "optimized" from the consolidation is the neonatal intensive care unit. The consolidation will allow the hospital to have an in-house neonatologist, increase its pediatric subspecialties and increase the presence of maternal-fetal medicine.
"We'll now have one program that covers the entire area and has the maximum number of safety checkpoints and care points in the event of a difficult pregnancy or anything going wrong with the mother or baby," Wright said. "If you have a neonatologist right there in real-time for any situation, your chances of everything going well during a difficult pregnancy are much higher."
Wright added the consolidation allows more Wheeling moms with high-risk pregnancies to stay local and not travel to J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown for care.
Another element added to WVU Medicine Wheeling's NICU is a new incubator, which will enhance NICU transport services by allowing for better care for newborns who need to be transported to the regional NICU.
Besides enhancing NICU capabilities, Wright noted the consolidation will also improve the "overall labor and delivery experience" for patients.
"The consolidation puts Wheeling Hospital at around 1,800 to 2,000 deliveries a year, which is a really busy program," Wright said. "That allows us to invest not only in safety features but also in some of the niceties and amenities of rooms you want to have at a top-level birth facility."
Beyond improving patient experience, the consolidation will also enhance the experience for WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital Labor and Delivery nurses and physicians. He outlined that instead of needing a primary physician and a backup physician on-call at both WVU Medicine Reynolds and Wheeling hospitals every night, only a primary physician and backup physician will be required in Wheeling.
"OBGYN is a very difficult profession when you deliver babies because you have to be on call, so if we can increase the pool of physicians who can be on call, staff will be on call less often," Wright said. "This will improve the quality of life for obstetricians, which will result in easier recruiting down the road."
Wright also sees future improvements for WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital's Labor and Delivery Department once the consolidation is finalized, including creating an OBGYN Physician Residency Program based in Wheeling.
"In that program, we'd be training the next generation of obstetricians," Wright noted. "Then we'd always have an obstetrician in-house, allowing us to do some neat things."