The WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center is continuing to bring new services to the region, expand existing services and upgrade technology while increasing the number of medical professionals to provide those services. (Photo Provided)

PARKERSBURG — Expanding medical services to the area so people can stay closer to home continues to be the focus of the WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center.

Over the last year and looking into 2025, the hospital worked to bring new services to the region, expand existing services and upgrade technology while increasing the number of medical professionals to provide those services. There are 2,200-2,300 employees.

“When you look at 2024, it was a busy year for us,” said Camden Clark President and CEO Sean Smith. “(It) was a year of growth and transition.”

He replaced retiring President/CEO Steve Altmiller in August 2024.

“As we continue to move forward, we are focusing on access of care,” Sean Smith said. “Looking at a hospital of our size and a community of our size, what kinds of services do we have that we need to provide depth of services and enhance access to care for?

Members of WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center Vice President of Ambulatory Operations Vince McClosky, Camden Clark President and CEO Sean Smith and Camden Clark Chief Operating Officer Duke Rupert. Smith took over as President and CEO last summer with the retirement of Steve Altmiller. (Photo Provided)

“What services do we not have, but should? Our mission is to meet the health care needs of our community for a lifetime.”

The medical center continues to recruit doctors and surgeons with specialties in vascular surgery, open-heart surgery, critical care, neurosurgery and more with doctors expected to start sometime in the coming months, Sean Smith said.

“With all of our services there really should not be a reason that patients and their families would have to leave the community for these types of services,” he said.

There are times when they will have to send people to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown for very specialized care, but the goal is to try to keep patients locally by offering a variety of services and treatments locally.

“We are providing 24/7 critical care coverage within our ICU,” Sean Smith said. “We are adding new services, like interventional radiology, to keep patients we would otherwise have to transfer out.”

The new state-of-the-art PET (positron emission tomography) scanner at the WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center is only one of two in the state. It is used primarily for cancer services to detect abnormalities or active disease to rule out potential malignant vs benign tumors and has the potential to do more. It represents a $1.8 million investment by the medical center. (Photo Provided)

Pediatric care was a huge focus in 2024, with the creation of the area’s only pediatric Rapid Care facility at the Southgate Shopping Center in south Parkersburg as part of an effort to expand services into that area.

“It has been wildly successful,” Sean Smith said.

The medical center has also been focusing on its pediatric services.

“We have developed (pediatric) inpatient hospitalists and a (pediatric) friendly ER,” Smith said. “We have a full complement of outpatient pediatric services as well as inpatient.”

They are also connected to WVU Children’s Hospital to be able to consult with different doctors on a variety of special cases.

Parkersburg Cardiology Associates on the campus of the WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center is part of the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute which has access to a number of heart related treatments and services that are available locally with doctors who are able to confer with others within the Institute on different cases. (Photo Provided)

Parkersburg Cardiology Associates is a part of the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute which has access to a number of heart related treatments and services that are available locally with doctors who are able to confer with others within the Institute on different cases.

As the medical center continues to grow services, it is also working to provide many services to the surrounding areas as well as to many smaller community hospitals in the area affiliated with WVU Medicine, like Wetzel County Hospital and Jackson General Hospital.

Clinics are being offered at these other locations with specialists able to travel to these locations to see patients.

“We have a rural population where it is important for us to bring health care to our patient population,” Sean Smith said. “It is important not to just concentrate on the patients when they come to the four walls of our hospital.

“We are focused on doing more outreach to meet the patients where they are.”

Over the last year, the Camden Clark Medical Center opened its Southgate facility in south Parkersburg. The facility has a pediatric Rapid Care clinic as the medical center continues to expand pediatric services. Phase 2 will be starting this year to expand services at Southgate which will include moving general surgery as well as Surgical Podiatry and Occupational Medicine. (Photo Provided)

The medical center is going to be starting Phase 2 of expanding services at Southgate which will include moving general surgery as well as Surgical Podiatry and Occupational Medicine.

Vince McClosky, Vice President of Ambulatory Operations which deals with all offsite and hospital based clinics, said they want to take a patient-centered approach where there is more collaboration between their primary care and specialty clinics so patients get test results back faster by utilizing technology and the internal communications.

“That is a big thing we are focusing on in ’25,” he said.

The medical center has been replacing its MRI, positron emission tomography (PET) scan, as well as other equipment which will be able to add new service lines locally as well as do them faster, said Tracy Smith Director of Imaging Services.

“We have a strong focus on replacing everything in radiology,” she said. “We replaced everything with the thought that we wanted to grow and increase technology.

The WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center is continuing to bring new services to the region, expand existing services and upgrade technology while increasing the number of medical professionals to provide those services. (Photo Provided)

“That has been really exciting. We can now do more.”

They are working to make sure the equipment matches the protocols with the equipment at Ruby Hospital so there is consistency in the scans if anything has to be referred over there with patients having to go to Morgantown for additional scans.

“There is no reason we can’t keep people here locally to do that imaging,” Tracy Smith said, adding people in the region can come to Camden Clark as opposed to going to Morgantown for these scans.

Camden Clark CFO Kyle Pierson said there is a high demand for this new equipment as it does scans in a shorter amount of time which allows the medical center to be able to fit in more patients.

“Upgrading the machines allows us to do new tests we couldn’t do before,” he said.

The medical center spent $1.8 million on a new state-of-art PET scanner. Officials say it is the only one of its kind in the area and only one of two in the entire state. It is used primarily for cancer services to detect abnormalities or active disease to rule out potential malignant vs benign tumors and is capable of doing much more. It has been in operation since Feb. 7.

Tracy Smith said they were only doing “the bread-and-butter PET scans” before. They will now have the ability to get into more cardiac imaging, brain studies that they previously didn’t have the ability to do before.

“The new scan times are going to increase our capacity to see patients,” she said.

They also replaced the MRI machines in the Medical Office facility which will provide more detailed scans of things like mammograms.

“There has been a tremendous effort over the past few years to replace everything,” Sean Smith said of the millions invested in this equipment.

Some of the equipment replaced was around 15 years old, officials said, adding their goal is to be able to replace equipment every eight to 12 years.

“We work to keep up with technology as it changes fast,” Sean Smith said.

Camden Clark COO Duke Rupert recently came to Parkersburg from the Pittsburgh Allegheny Health Network where he worked for 27 years.

“Some of the technology here (at Camden Clark) isn’t even in some of the bigger cities yet,” he said. “One of the things I was impressed with was the investments being made here.

“It is very exciting to see what is coming up next and see what we are going to do next.”

Rupert said the focus remains on taking care of patients.

“People should not have to leave the community for some of the care we are providing and some of the things we are developing,” he said, adding, at this point, transplants and high end procedures should be the only reason someone needs to leave and go somewhere else for treatment.

For a while, the Camden Clark Ambulance service was running around four trucks a day, officials said. They have been able to increase that to around six or eight trucks a day to better serve the community.

Camden Clark is getting a trauma paramedicine utility vehicle allowing EMS response teams to provide whole blood products in the field in trauma situations. The Camden Clark Ambulance Service responds to approximately 25,000 calls each year. Many are trauma related and happen in rural areas.

Bleeding can often be the cause of early death in trauma cases, officials said. On-site blood transfusions can save lives. Being able to treat the patient in the field removes delays in patient care and increases survival rates.

This vehicle should be delivered and in use by late spring.

Camden Clark is building a new clinic in St. Marys, that will include Rapid Care, X-Ray and lab services as well as having rotating specialists.

Hospital officials hope to have that clinic open sometime this spring.

“We are very anxious to be able to deliver services to Pleasants County, having rotating specialists going to the outlying areas and supporting some of the more rural hospitals,” Sean Smith said. “We are looking at providing cardiology services and other specialty care to some of these hospitals.”

Marjean Kennedy, Vice President of Marketing, Development and Strategic Initiatives at Camden Clark, said this is the third year Camden Clark was named one of America’s Top 250 Hospitals as well as receiving awards for cardiovascular, orthopedic, neuroscience, pulmonary, gastrointestinal and critical care through HealthGrades.

“It is all about the way we operate that allows us to have transparency and clarity where we are at different stages throughout the continuum of care and the quality of care we are providing,” she said.

Sean Smith said the awards and recognition are nice, but they are more representative of the quality of care they strive to maintain for the community.

“It speaks to the consistency of the services we are providing,” he said. “We want to be the leading regional medical center known for high quality comprehensive state of the art care.”

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com

A concept drawing for a new clinic in St. Marys. The new clinic will include Rapid Care, X-Ray and lab services as well as having rotating specialists. Hospital officials hope to have that clinic open sometime this spring. (Photo Provided)

Officials at the WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center continue to recruit doctors and surgeons with specialties in vascular surgery, open-heart surgery, critical care, neurosurgery and more as the medical center continues to expand services. (Photo Provided)