Maine hospitals or health care providers that want to build a new facility or expand or redesign an existing one, must file a Certificate of Need (CON) application with the state's Certificate of Need Unit (CONU).

The CONU then reviews the application and recommends either its approval or denial based on the documented need.

The following information is taken from MaineGeneral's CON application for its New Regional Hospital/Thayer Comprehensive Outpatient Center (TCOC) project.

Documentation of Need

In 1997 Kennebec Valley Medical Center and Mid-Maine Medical Center merged to create MaineGeneral Medical Center (MGMC).

Originating from the most mergers and consolidations of any Maine hospital, MaineGeneral is guided by a single standard: to maintain access in the Kennebec Valley to a full range of coordinated primary and specialty care services that can meet national standards of quality.

To MaineGeneral, access means more than geography. It means access to the right care, at the right time, provided in the right place.

The New Regional Hospital/TCOC project will help MaineGeneral achieve its full potential.

The project consists of:

• A 192-bed regional hospital that consolidates all of MGMC's inpatient beds to one campus in Augusta.
  
• A comprehensive outpatient facility at Waterville's Thayer Campus, building on investments made in surgical, diagnostic and emergency facilities over the last decade.
  
• Closing the Augusta and Seton facilities to reduce costs and improve coordination of care.
• Implementing innovative primary care models to decrease costly Emergency Department (ED) use.
• Investing in preventive care to decrease disease and help people of all ages lead healthier, more productive lives.

It includes:

• All private rooms to enhance privacy and healing and to increase patient safety by reducing patient room transfers, rates of infection and falls.
  
• Private rooms for all procedure prep and recovery as well as emergency department (ED) patients.
  
• Natural light and outside views to extend the cancer center's concept of “healing enhanced by nature” to the New Regional Hospital.

The $322 million investment in this project will allow MGMC to:

• Recruit and retain primary and specialty care physicians to meet the health care needs of the people of the greater Kennebec Valley region.
• Reduce operational expenses by $7,123,323 annually.
  
• Reduce licensed hospital beds by 95 due to higher occupancy rates because of private rooms and ongoing refinement in our care processes.
  
• Create a learning lab so we can continually improve the care we offer.