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Pocono Medical Center West Planned In Tannersville Area

TANNERSVILLE — It appears a project to build a brand new hospital in the Poconos received the green light on Thursday. The place is planned for the Tanner...

TANNERSVILLE -- It appears a project to build a brand new hospital in the Poconos received the green light on Thursday. The place is planned for the Tannersville area.

The property was recently purchased by Pocono Medical Center, and hospital executives announced that on this site, they will soon build a new hospital they've already named Pocono Medical Center West.

The number of emergency room patients at the Pocono Medical Center in East Stroudsburg has almost doubled in the last 12 years. That's one reason why the health care provider plans to build a new hospital 12 miles away from the East Stroudsburg complex.

This is an artist rendering of what the new complex will look like:

Pocono Medical Center West Planned In Tannersville Area

"We looked at where the growth of our service area is, and it is west of here. So we want to provide access close to the population density, and to where the patients can receive care closer to home," said Pocono Medical Center CEO Jeff Snyder.

Pocono Medical Center has opened several satellite clinics from Tobyhanna to Bartonsville, but PMC West will be the first full-fledged hospital outside of the East Stroudsburg complex.

While the population in much of northeastern and central Pennsylvania has dwindled, Monroe and Pike Counties continue to grow and the hospital says that has created the need for the new medical center.

With Interstate 80 and East Stroudsburg University surrounding the main Pocono Medical Center complex, there's no room to grow.

"When we look at the Tannersville site, we see it as being a logical extension of what we can't do here because of constraints on space," said Pocono Medical Center senior vice president Steve Cunningham.

Hospital executive still don't know how many beds the new facility will have.

The hospital expects it will take a year and a half to get all its permits, then another year and a half to build the facility.

The best estimate is that Pocono Medical Center West will be taking its first patients in late 2017 or early 2018.

 

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