Many doctors spend their professional lives shuttling back and forth between office and hospital settings. Starting this year, doctors in Jackson County will be able to eliminate the hassle associated with two work spaces as a result of the construction of a new medical office building on the Harris Regional Hospital campus in Sylva.

The 45,000-square-foot, three-story building will house physicians’ practices, an outpatient laboratory and a radiology lab offering a one-stop experience that will make access easier for patients and life a lot easier for doctors.

Mark Leonard, CEO of WestCare Health System, said the new building comes at a time when office space is at a premium.

“Currently most of the physician office space on the Harris Regional Hospital campus is occupied, so we’re very excited about the development of this new building which will provide the opportunity for our medical staff to grow and for hospital related functions to expand, so that we can better serve the community,” said Leonard.

As a testimony to the growth of the medical community in Jackson County, WestCare has recruited 11 new physicians and seven new physician assistants during the past year, and the hope is that the addition of state-of-the-art office space will dramatically enhance recruiting efforts.

“We have had a successful year of recruiting physicians, and with our existing medical offices at capacity we need a modern, welcoming office for them and their patients,” said Ronnie Sloan, vice president of support services for WestCare.

The medical office building is being built by a private entity, Colony Development Partners of Charlotte, who will in turn lease space to doctors.

Colony Development Partners is a full-service turnkey healthcare development company whose portfolio includes speculative medical offices, hospital-sponsored medical office buildings, surgery centers and single-practice medical office buildings.

Heath Knott, the company’s spokesperson, called the planned building a “Class A” medical office building. It will have a covered patient drop-off, two gurney-sized elevators, and the robust data port infrastructure crucial for the expanded use of electronic medical records.

“WestCare is on the forefront of electronic medical records, which are an integral part of medicine moving forward,” Knott said. “To be able to use the Internet securely and access servers is critical to medical operations today.”

Jackson County already enjoys extremely high-quality medical care for a rural area, and with the addition of the new Harris Doctors Building that quality of care will only improve.