WHEELING, W.Va. \u2014 WVU Medicine has significantly expanded its presence in the Ohio Valley, investing nearly $1 billion in local projects over the past couple of years — without state funding. <\/p>\n
This expansion aims to improve access to healthcare in rural areas, with new clinics opening in Bellaire, Benwood, and St. Clairsville, among others.<\/p>\n
“How do you create access for patients, without having them travel long distances?” asked Doug Harrison, president and CEO of WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital. “That’s what drives us here every day,” <\/p>\n
732832″If we can deliver that care to the local community level in their backyard, that’s best for everyone,” he added.<\/p>\n
WVU Medicine’s mission, since its establishment in 1996, has been to ensure local healthcare remains accessible and not dominated by for-profit entities from outside the region. <\/p>\n
“If we did not act that we would lose local healthcare that these for-profit entities out of Tennessee and Nashville were going to dominate our healthcare market,” Harrison said.<\/p>\n
Officials indicate that more projects are in development, continuing WVU Medicine’s commitment to enhancing rural healthcare access.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHEELING, W.Va. \u2014 WVU Medicine has significantly expanded its presence in the Ohio Valley, investing nearly $1 billion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[33060,163,521,40844,60014,85,1981,46,60013,60012,47933,60011],"class_list":{"0":"post-87850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-clinics","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-healthcare-access","12":"tag-healthcare-expansion","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-investment","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-local-community","17":"tag-ohio-valley","18":"tag-rural-healthcare","19":"tag-wvu-medicine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}