Bedford County Medical Center CEO Dan Buckner stands in what will be his office at Heritage Medical Center, BCMC's replacement facility in Airport Industrial Park. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney)

Bedford County Medical Center will be re-named Heritage Medical Center when it moves into its new $40 million, 104,000-square-foot facility in Airport Industrial Park in mid-July, according to new CEO Dan Buckner.

Buckner was named interim CEO of the hospital in December, and became its permanent CEO on Monday.

Buckner is looking forward to the challenge of opening a new hospital, but he himself is hardly new to the hospital business. He spent two decades in health care management, most recently as chief operating officer of SkyRidge Medical Center in Cleveland, Tenn.

"Dan is an accomplished healthcare administrator and a dynamic leader," said Coleman Foss, CEO of SkyRidge Medical Center, in a news release. "He will bring an excellent balance of professional expertise and interpersonal skill to the position. Bedford County is fortunate to be getting an administrator of his caliber at their community hospital."

Buckner is a native of Murfreesboro and received his undergraduate degree from the University of the South in Sewanee. He earned his master's at Georgia State University. He's happy to be back in Middle Tennessee after 30 years of working elsewhere.

Buckner said the new hospital is "a month ahead of schedule." The windows are in and the heating system was turned on last week. Plans are being made for a mid-July opening. Needless to say, replacing a hospital is a logistically-complex process. It will take half a day to move all the patients. About $10 million in new equipment is being bought new for the new facility, over and above the $40 million construction cost. But some items -- like an MRI machine -- are so expensive, and still relatively new, that they will be moved from the old facility to the new one -- on a very specific time schedule so that they remain available for patient care until the last possible moment.

Although Buckner arrived long after the plans were made and the work begun, he is generally pleased with the design of the new hospital, calling it simple, user-friendly and expandable as the community grows. While some hospitals have layouts so complex that colored stripes are painted on the floors to help visitors find their way, Buckner said the new Heritage Medical Center should be easy to navigate.

"Here, you just say, 'go left,' 'go right,'" he said.

On the ground floor, a public hallway hugs the front of the main building, while a more private patient hallway wraps across the rear. On the second floor, where patient rooms are located, visitors are immediately greeted by the main nurses' station, where they can easily be directed.

The main visitor waiting room on the second floor, unlike some cramped, windowless waiting rooms, is part of the hospital's facade and overlooks its front lawn and main driveway.

The intensive care unit nurse's station has easy visual access to the door of every single room in the unit.

There are public elevators and patient to go between the two floors, but for those who prefer the steps there is a roomy staircase are visible and easily accessible from the hospital's front entrance.

The hospital will open with 60 beds, most of them in single rooms with only a few in double rooms. Buckner said the patient rooms will be 5-8 square feet larger than the average patient room.

The hospital is built with four wings, and Buckner said any of the four wings could be easily extended when the hospital needs to expand. A medical office building is rising nearby, and there is space on the property for a second building, and in the long run even an third or fourth.

Buckner said the name Heritage Medical Center is meant to honor the county's history of medical care. A special plaza outside the southeast corner of the building will feature plaques and displays commemorating well-known physicians of the past or key moments in the history of local health care.

Bedford County sold the hospital, which had long been county-owned, to Brentwood-based Community Health Systems in 2005, on the condition that CHS build a new facility within five years. Studies had shown that a new hospital was critical to physician recruitment and patient marketing, and the county was in no financial position to build one.

Buckner pointed out that CHS will meet its 2010 deadline with two years to spare, which he said reflect the corporations' "promises made, promises kept" philosophy.

The new hospital will be the closest to CHS's corporate offices, and is the first to use a new design template which Buckner said will be used or adapted at other CHS hospitals in the future.

Buckner succeeded William Macri as the hospital's CEO. He's been introducing himself to the community but hasn't yet gotten the chance to meet the other Dan Buckner in town -- the J. Dan Buckner who is an owner, manager and funeral director at Gowen-Smith Chapel, directly across the street from BCMC's current location. The two men are not related. The hospital's Dan Buckner hoped to meet the funeral home's Dan Buckner at a civic club meeting this week, but the funeral home Buckner was absent.

The hospital's Buckner and his wife Jennifer have four children.