WellStar Health System will break ground Monday on a new hospital and medical office building in Paulding County, investing $135 million in the project.
The eight-story hospital in Hiram will include 56 private rooms, an emergency department, a women’s imaging center, cancer center and other services. It will replace WellStar's aging facility in Dallas.
Health systems across metro Atlanta are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new facilities to prepare for future demand as baby boomers age and the region’s population continues to grow.
“There was a need for a modern facility,” WellStar spokeswoman Sharon Woods said.
The new Paulding hospital is designed to minimize errors, decrease length of stay and improve patient outcomes, Woods said. Electronic medical records will allow doctors to quickly access patients’ medical histories. Nursing stations will be set up in pods instead of one central location so staff can better oversee patients, she said.
WellStar also plans to build a 83,000-square-foot medical office building, connecting it and an existing office building to the main hospital via an atrium. The hospital is expected to be completed by April 2014 and create 300 new jobs.
Support real journalism. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution today. See offers.
Your subscription to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution funds in-depth reporting and investigations that keep you informed. Thank you for supporting real journalism.