must stick to plan

BY Jeff Barron
PDT Staff WriterIn order to complete its 10-year, $69 million expansion project, the Southern Ohio Medical Center must not deviate from its master plan, hospital CEO Randy Arnett said.

“It took a good 12 months to put a plan together that would literally last 25 years,” he said. “We've been operating off that since late 2001. Every time we build something we look at that plan.”

The next phase of the expansion is to build a wing for open heart surgery. The master plan calls for the hospital to begin open heart surgery in 2008. Ground breaking for the wing is scheduled for the spring.

“As we're speaking, we are drawing and designing it,” Arnett said. “We will get it right. We've had an awful lot of our doctors and employees look at it.”