WellStar Cobb Hospital in Austell opened a new inpatient burn unit in August.
Seven years ago the hospital began a collaboration with the Joseph M. Still (JMS) Burn Center in Augusta.
“Today we are expanding our burn services,” said Kem Mullins, senior vice president and WellStar Cobb Hospital president.
“We are excited about opening this new unit at WellStar Cobb Hospital,” he said. “It will provide patients who must undergo long-term burn care and treatment an option closer to home. We estimate that the new unit will have approximately 365 admissions in the first year. Initially, the unit will provide care for patients with burns on 20 percent of their bodies or less and who are 14 years of age or older.”
The new unit will also add jobs, including 25 new nursing positions.
“You have come a long way with this burn center and this hospital,” said Gov. Nathan Deal, on hand for the ribbon cutting. Deal said that his goal was to expand the residency program in Georgia to keep qualified nurses and doctors in the state.
Staring with a staffed outpatient burn center one day a week in 2006, WellStar Cobb’s center has delivered more than 20,000 treatments to patients in the local community and those who travel from across Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and beyond for these critical services.
“Extending the burn and wound services at WellStar Cobb to full-time inpatient and outpatient care is the next logical step for the hospital and Joseph M. Still Burn Centers,” said Fred Mullins, M.D., medical director and president, Joseph M. Still Burn Centers, Inc. “We have been honored by the support the hospital and surrounding community of medical personnel have shown our outpatient clinic here over the past several years. These relationships will only strengthen in the years to come.”
JMS will provide the medical director and 24/7 physician coverage to the new inpatient burn unit.
From the September 2013 issue of The Bright Side, Cobb County Georgia’s Newspaper covering Smyrna, Vinings, Mableton and Austell, GA.
