8
Atrium Health’s
Carolinas Medical Center2
Charlotte
Beds: 1,080 | 2018 rank: 3 |
Interim president: Chris Bowe
After a proposed merger with UNC Health Care fell through in early 2018, Atrium responded by announcing a $1 billion investment across its 40-plus hospital system. Enhancements at the flagship location include a 12-story tower with 384 beds that will replace current infrastructure, a new building and parking deck for its Carolinas Rehabilitation center, and an expanded emergency room.
Challenge: The state’s biggest system has suffered publicity blows over the last year with a prominent 90-physician medical practice breaking away; a feud with the region’s biggest anesthesiologist organization; and settlements of federal antitrust allegations. As Atrium expands outside the state — it completed a merger with Georgia’s Navicent Health in January — it will have to prove that bigger is indeed better.
METHODOLOGY: Business North Carolina’s 2019 Best Hospitals list is calculated by the hospitals’ performance in 25 metrics, including information provided by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We examine patient-satisfaction surveys, rates of commonly acquired hospital infections, and readmission and death rates for common procedures. Also considered are safety report cards from The Leapfrog Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, and ratings from insurer Blue Cross and Blue Shield and U.S. News & World Report. We rank the state’s adult, acute-care medical centers with at least 50 beds, excluding specialty and psychiatric hospitals.
Click here to view the 2019 list of North Carolina’s Best Hospitals.
2 includes Carolinas Medical Center (907 beds) and Carolinas Medical Center Mercy (173 beds)