Pine Bluff And Hot Springs Hospitals To Expand

Hospitals in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff are planning multimillion dollar expansions. At Saint Joseph`s Mercy Health Center in Hot Springs, a 22 million dollar project will add an outpatient diagnostic center that will include new digital imaging technology. At Pine Bluff, Jefferson Regional Medical Center plans to spend 8 million dollars on a medical office building. Construction at Saint Joseph`s is to start soon and be complete in the spring. The imaging equipment will include a CT scanner that can generate a 360 degree image of the body, two nuclear medicine cameras, two ultrasound units, a digital radiographic-fluoroscopic unit and a digital radiographic unit. At Pine Bluff, Jefferson Regional Medical Center CEO Bob Atkinson says an existing five-story medical office building and others around the hospital are full. The new building would be used by physicians -- primarily those specializing in cardiology.