The Roanoke Valley is the medical center of western Virginia. Home to Carilion Clinic, two HCA hospitals and a large Veterans Administration facility, the Valley has long served as the hub of first-rate medical care for the broader region. Recent plans have enhanced that role beyond traditional patient care and treatment to include research and education.

The organization formerly known as Carilion Health System is becoming the “Carilion Clinic,” a not-for-profit, multi-specialty clinic focused on excellent patient care, research and education. Under the continued leadership of the organization’s existing Board of Trustees, a new Board of Governors will manage the Clinic. Of the eleven managing board members, eight will be physicians, with the rest representing nursing and administration. Its purpose is to coordinate all activities around a single goal – excellent patient care. Carilion President and CEO, Edward G. Murphy, MD will chair the group of managing physicians. According to Murphy, despite excellent hospitals, skilled physicians and state-of-the-art technology, the traditional healthcare delivery system has not achieved the desired level of quality, excellence and accessibility for patients.

“The health care industry as currently structured is headed down a path that leads to higher cost and less value for patients,” said Murphy. “Our goal is to align our organization in a way that makes the patient’s best interest our top priority.” After traveling the country and studying other health systems, Murphy and his management team developed a new healthcare delivery structure, based on principles embraced by world-renowned organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and the Lahey Clinic. The Carilion Clinic will focus on three areas; excellent patient care, research and medical education.

PATIENT CARE

The Carilion Clinic will recruit specialists from around the country, physicians who represent the leading edge of medicine in their respective fields. Some of these physicians are already present in the system in specialties such as orthopedics, cardiac and neurosurgery. The clinic will align the resources and incentives of physicians and hospitals to focus solely on patient quality, safety, access and service. A $75-million-dollar clinic facility will be built at nearby Riverside Center, to provide office space for physicians and convenient access for patients. Construction is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2007.

RESEARCH

The Carilion Clinic has reached an agreement in principle to establish a Clinical Research Institute in partnership with Virginia Tech. The Institute, a 50-50 partnership with the University, also will be located in Riverside Center. The Institute will allow Clinic specialists to conduct research, and create the scholarly atmosphere necessary to attract the best and brightest in their respective fields.

EDUCATE

A commitment to medical education is a vital part of the Carilion Clinic. Medical education not only creates future physicians and specialists, but it generates an atmosphere of exploration and innovation – a desire to find better ways to heal and care for patients. Carilion will add four to five additional fellowship programs in the next five years, with further expansion in the future. Areas of education under consideration include cardiology, critical care, pulmonology, gastroenterology, and vascular surgery. This builds on Carilion’s long-standing reputation as a premier medical education site, and, as the program grows, will attract additional bright, talented individuals who are interested in learning from the best educators, in an exemplary learning environment. This also enhances the Clinic’s ability to recruit physicians in the more specialty and sub-specialty fields of practice to meet our communities’ needs.

In January 2007, Carilion and Virginia Tech, Virginia’s largest research university, announced plans to create a jointly operated private medical school, located in downtown Roanoke, adjacent to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. Patterned after Harvard Medical School’s Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program and Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine, the new school will have a small class size and be dedicated to training physician researchers. Class size is projected to be 40 students per year. In addition to a traditional medical school curriculum, all students will receive training in research methods, conduct original research and write a thesis as a condition of graduation. To accommodate the expanded graduation requirements, the school will have a five-year curriculum instead of the traditional four-year curriculum.

Research will be a key component of the school’s curriculum; with the goal of training physicians who want to make research part of their medical career. Virginia Tech’s partnership with Carilion provides opportunities to expand important research programs at Tech, including: bioinformatics, computer science, and engineering, along with epidemiology, health services, basic sciences and clinical research. Students will have the option of earning a Master’s degree at the same time they complete their medical training. This curriculum will also put a PhD within reach for students who would like to pursue one.

The presence of a medical school on the Carilion Clinic campus will add to the growing South Jefferson corridor and further efforts to build a robust and exciting economic climate in downtown Roanoke. The school will be co-located with the future Virginia Tech-Carilion Medical Research Institute, in close proximity to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, the Jefferson College of Health Sciences and the Roanoke Higher Education Center.

A GROWING PRESENCE

In the heart of it all is the City of Roanoke’s Riverside Center. Located less than a mile from Roanoke’s flourishing downtown and adjacent to the hospital campus of Carilion Clinic, Riverside Center is a 27-acre business, research and medical park complete with contained parking, flexible/long-term office space, walking paths, nearby daycare, wireless network, hotel, restaurants, and access to the Riverside Sports Complex with running trails, tennis courts, a baseball diamond, soccer field and a playground. It was developed as a public-private partnership by the City of Roanoke, Roanoke Regional Housing Authority and Carilion. The park will be the hub of an already burgeoning biomedical community in the Roanoke and New River Valleys of southwest Virginia. It is also the place where the growing partnership between Carilion and Virginia Tech will take shape.

Construction on the first office building in Riverside will be completed in early 2007, with the top floor already occupied by Luna Innovations. VT Riverside -- a Virginia Tech obesity research laboratory also will be a tenant. In 2008, Carilion and Virginia Tech will break ground on the joint medical school and research institute, expected to begin operation in 2009 or 2010.

In addition, site preparation is underway for Cambria Suites, an upscale, select service, all-suites hotel that is part of the Choice Hotels portfolio. Cambria Suites at Riverside will feature underground parking, a fitness center with swimming pool and a coffee bar and lounge. Cambria Suites adds more amenities to Riverside Center for both business and leisure travelers coming to Roanoke. We are proud that they chose Roanoke and glad that their customers will have the uncommon opportunity to enjoy southwest Virginia’s favorable business climate, our world-class manufacturing and technology companies and our unsurpassed natural beauty and historical treasures.

Adjacent to the hotel are sites for the development of restaurant, office and residential projects which will support Riverside, Carilion Clinic and the newly announced Carilion/Virginia Tech Medical School and Research facility.

For more information about Carilion Clinic, Carilion Biomedical Institute or the new medical school, contact Eric Earnhart, Carilion Health System, (540) 224-4966, or eearnhart@carilion.com.

For information about opportunities in Riverside Center, contact Ed Hall or Angie Stanfill of Hall Associates at (540) 982-0011.

For information about the Roanoke Valley, contact the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership at 1-800-LOCATE2, OR rvedp@roanoke.org.