As the population in the southern part of Fairfax County continues to grow at a rapid pace, the need to provide emergency services grows as well.
For the past year, Inova Health Systems has been working with Fairfax County to open a new Healthplex in the Lorton area, possibly in the vicinity of Route 1 near the former Lorton School building.
"The plans haven't been finalized yet, but the space has been determined," said Beth Visioli, a public relations manager for Inova. "The facility would be somewhat similar to the Healthplex we have in Springfield, which is like an emergency department of a hospital but offers outpatient services," Visioli said.
The Springfield facility was the first Healthplex Inova built, she said, pioneering a concept for the hospital system.
"We've reached our capacity for helping the community at our Springfield location," said Pat Walters, executive vice president for Inova. "We need to expand our services. There's a lot of growth in that area of the county which will be exaggerated with the BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] movement to Fort Belvoir," he said.
The relocation of tens of thousands of military and civilian personnel to the southern part of Fairfax County would strain the ability to adequately serve the community with the current locations, Walter said.
So far, Inova staff have met with several neighborhood associations in the Lorton area, discussing the needs and concerns of the residents including how Inova plans to design the facility.
"The building will be about 100,000 square feet, which is 70 percent of the Springfield facility," Walters said. "There's not a tremendous amount of property available that could be zoned for what we want to do in that area."
PUBLIC HEARINGS with the Fairfax County Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors have begun, Walters said, and he hopes reviews will begin in the first part of 2006.
"Hopefully, the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors will have made a decision that will allow us to progress on this project by mid-2006, and it would take about two years from that point to build," he said.
If approved, the Lorton Healthplex would be modeled after the Springfield facility, featuring physician's offices, a 24-hour emergency room, imaging services including X-rays and endoscopies and some laboratory services, Walters said.
"We are looking at the feasibility of having some outpatient surgical procedures, which we do have at Springfield," he said.
Critical emergency patients would be transferred from the Healthplex to a hospital for better care, Walters added.
Although the southern half of the county is undergoing the Area Plan Review process, which allows for modifications to the county's Comprehensive Plan, Supervisor Gerald Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) submitted an out-of-turn plan amendment to allow the process for building the Lorton Healthplex to be expedited.
"We're hoping to have a meeting scheduled at the Planning Commission in December to discuss this project," Hyland said. "I want to do anything I can to get this going faster. Once the plan is approved, the next step will be to have the site plan established, which could lead to construction starting at the middle or end of next year."
A task force comprised of residents that helped to "save Mount Vernon hospital have also requested the Healthplex to be built in Lorton," Hyland said.