Ask a handful of area residents what the county seat is of Orange County, and a number of them won’t get it right. If Chapel Hill is North Carolina’s proud home of the nation’s oldest public university, where academia and athletics drive the “pulse” of Orange County, then Chapel Hill must be Orange County’s county seat, right? Not right. Those who know which Orange County town was founded a century before Chapel Hill will also know our county seat – Hillsborough. The rich history of this town dates back to colonial times, when Hillsborough served as the home of North Carolina’s state legislature during the American Revolution. Today, it is a thriving Triangle-area town and municipal base of a county where many University members choose to live over Chapel Hill.
Why have I focused on Hillsborough leading into my column? As one who’s had personal and professional roots in Chapel Hill for decades now, I’m thrilled to watch Hillsborough become a UNC Health Care stronghold as UNC Hospitals Hillsborough (UNCHHB) campus approaches three years of operation mid-2018. As a second UNC Hospitals (UNCH) campus, UNCHHB offers a majority of division and department clinical services that patients receive at Chapel Hill’s campus. Since UNCHHB’s earliest days of outpatient service, the Department of Radiology has offered patient care at this location, including mammography, ultrasound and radiography. With the opening of UNCHHB, we added MR, CT and fluoroscopic studies. As we grow the Department’s clinical services in several divisions in 2018, I’m pleased that a growing number of our patients continue to seek services at the second of two UNCH campuses where we offer comprehensive patient care.
We have a lot to look forward to in 2018 with what’s ahead for Interventional Radiology (IR) at UNCHHB. The Department has transferred several low- to moderate-intensity IR outpatient services offered centrally in Chapel Hill (Meadowmont Village) to UNCHHB. Once construction of a full-service IR clinical suite at the Hillsborough campus is completed later this year, we will be expanding our IR services at UNCHHB to all inpatient and complex outpatient procedural care. We look forward with this addition to accommodating Hillsborough area inpatients who would otherwise be traveling to Chapel Hill for treatment beyond outpatient care. In Hillsborough, we are also growing IR procedural services in 2018 that mirror what is offered at UNCH’s Chapel Hill campus.
Since UNCHHB’s earliest days of operation, our Breast Imaging division has offered mammography services to Hillsborough area patients. Offering mammography in Hillsborough was among the limited, multi-disciplinary services that UNCH established in the earliest days of its second hospital campus, prior to UNCHHB’s official mid-2015 opening. With mammography well established in Hillsborough now for around five years, we plan on adding a state-of-the-art second mammographic unit at UNCHHB to give patients there an advanced mammography experience. UNCHHB mammography patients can now undergo a more comforting imaging experience through use of GE Healthcare’s Senographe Pristina™ patient-assisted (PA) compression feature. Through helping the technologist ensure proper breast positioning with a handheld control, UNCHHB’s mammography patients can directly participate in their mammogram using the handheld remote. As we grow our clinical service offerings at UNCHHB, we’re pleased the Department’s newest breast imaging technology has been installed at that UNCH campus for the female patients who prefer to receive mammography care there.
In MR services, the single MR imaging unit we’ve added has reached capacity at this point. Plans are evolving to add another unit to accommodate the needs of UNCHHB’s ever-growing base of patients.
In 2018, growing the clinical services of two busy departmental divisions at a full-fledged second UNCH hospital campus represents the direction we want to keep heading. Both of these divisions treat a large volume of patients every day, and this growth at UNCHBB greatly benefits patients and providers alike at UNCHHB. Beyond the IR, MR and Breast Imaging services that are well-rooted now in Hillsborough, the Department of Radiology sees a bright future ahead for growing the clinical presence of its seven other divisions in the “other” boomtown of Orange County.
