Staff Report
Two of the region’s largest health-care groups are competing for the right to install a multimillion-dollar MRI scanner in Cabarrus County.
NorthEast Medical Center, which is merging with Carolinas Healthcare System, wants to install the scanner at at the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis.
The competition comes from Presbyterian Regional Healthcare Corp., which wants to install the MRI scanner in a diagnostic center near Kannapolis Parkway in Concord.
Both companies are asking state officials to give them the certificate of need required to buy the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner.
According to a release from the N.C. Division of Facility Services, the 2007 State Medical Facilities Plan “identifies the need for one additional MRI scanner in Cabarrus County.”
The state summarized the competing proposals as:
– Southern Piedmont Imaging, a subsidiary of NorthEast Medical Center, proposed to buy a $1.9 million MRI scanner for use in “its approved diagnostic center” at David Murdock’s Research Campus, which is rising on the site of the former Cannon Mills Plant 1 complex.
– Presbyterian Regional Healthcare Corp. proposes establishing a $9.1 million diagnostic center, complete with a MRI scanner; CT (computed tomography) scanner, also known as a CAT scanner (Computed Axial Tomography); mammography; ultrasound; and X-ray equipment.
Presbyterian Healthcare proposes to open Presbyterian Diagnostic Center near the intersection of N.C. 73 and Kannapolis Parkway in Concord.
State officials will hold a public hearing about the two competing projects at 11 a.m. July 17, a Tuesday, at the Kannapolis Train Station, 201 S. Main St.
Anyone can also send a written comment about the proposals to Certificate of Need Section, Division of Facility Services, 2704 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-2704.
State officials must receive those comments by July 2.
For more information about the two proposals, call Tanya S. Rupp, project analyst in the Certificate of Need Section, at 919-855-3873.