Healthy competition at hospitals

Charlotte-area hospitals compete for your business in many ways, as you can see from interstate highway billboards that advertise both high-tech and high-touch services.

Both of Charlotte's hospital systems, Carolinas HealthCare System and Presbyterian Healthcare, and some of the community hospitals outside Mecklenburg County, are regularly named to national "best" lists for various services.

Carolinas Medical Center, the flagship of CHS, is the only hospital in the region where doctors perform organ transplants - including hearts, kidneys, livers and pancreases.

At least 10 area hospitals have DaVinci robots for prostate, cardiac and bariatric surgery.

Around the region, maternity centers offer such amenities as Jacuzzi tubs to attract expectant parents with plenty of time to plan their birthing experiences.

For example, the six-year-old Birthplace at Gaston Memorial Hospital, 30 miles east of Charlotte, features several walls of flowing water, landscaped courtyards and whimsical mobiles and sculpture.

The Birthplace has 53 rooms where mothers and babies stay for their entire experience - labor, delivery, recovery and post-partum (LDRP). The center also has one of the nation's few neonatal intensive care units with private rooms instead of one large nursery with rows of bassinets.

Pediatric care ratcheted up with the 2007 opening of Levine Children's Hospital at Carolinas Medical Center. With 234 beds, it's the largest children's hospital between Atlanta and Washington.

A nightly spectacle with its multicolored neon lights, the hospital has attracted pediatric specialists from around the country.

Established relationships

Charlotte is the largest city in the country without a four-year medical school, and our hospitals may not have the reputations of, say, the Cleveland Clinic.

But in the last year, Carolinas HealthCare recruited one of the Cleveland Clinic's leading oncologists, Dr. Derek Raghavan, to oversee its new Levine Cancer Institute.

And UNC Chapel Hill School of Medical recently opened a branch campus at CMC, where 22 students now spend their third and fourth years of med school. That's in addition to CMC's residency program, which has been training doctors for decades.

Many locally trained doctors remain in Charlotte, practicing alongside those who've been recruited from elsewhere.

Anu Murthy, executive director for strategic business development at CaroMont Health in Gastonia, said she and her physician husband lived in Boston for six years during his training. Academic medicine and research are more prevalent there than in the Charlotte area, but that's not all bad, she said.

"Here you can establish relationships with patients in a way that you can't in other centers. There's 'high-touch' here that you don't see in bigger cities."

In Charlotte, you're apt to hear doctors and hospital administrators declare that patients no longer have reason to travel for treatment.

Lots of docs to choose from

Despite worries about a national doctor shortage, the Charlotte region has plenty - about 2,540 in Mecklenburg alone.

Many are employed by hospitals and listed on the hospital system websites. You can also find doctors through local medical societies or online search engines operated by the American Medical Association or WebMD.

Health insurance plans often restrict your choices, so it's good to review the insurer's list of in-network health-care professionals.

Remember, when you're looking for a doctor or other health-care provider, some of the best advice comes from friends and relatives.

Once you have names, you should check credentials with licensing boards for doctors, nurses, physician assistants, dentists, chiropractors, optometrists, psychologists, acupuncturists and massage therapists.

It's good to choose a doctor while you're well instead of waiting until you're sick.

Consider which hospital a doctor uses and whether the doctor is board certified or has experience treating your condition. You might also base your choice on the location of the doctor's office, the office hours and how long it takes to get a routine appointment.

If you're a newcomer, you might ask for a recommendation from your previous doctor.

When I moved from Cincinnati 25 years ago, my family doctor recommended Dr. David Citron, who I soon learned was one of Charlotte's most beloved physicians.

By that time, he was no longer taking private patients because he had become head of medical education at Carolinas Medical Center, teaching the next generation of doctors.

Citron died in 2003, but many of his one-time students still practice here and remember, as I do, that he set high standards for medical care in Charlotte - a legacy that lives on.