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Janis Quinn
Division of Public Affairs
University of Mississippi Medical Center
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MALL SHOPPING TAKES A HEALTH TURN
JACKSON, MISS.--Mississippi's first shopping mall, once all but abandoned and given up for dead, emerges Friday, January 23, as a new creation. The mall now offers one-stop shopping for health care consumers under a new banner--the Jackson Medical Mall.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC) is the Jackson Medical Mall's anchor tenant with its teaching clinics occupying 191,000 square feet of space in what was once the anchor retail tenant, Gayfers department store.
The Medical Center opened a primary care clinic at the mall earlier this month. Physicians in family medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, pediatrics and general internal medicine give new patients an easy way to access the health care services at the mall, according to UMC vice chancellor Dr. Wallace Conerly.
In addition to UMC's primary and specialty clinics, the Mississippi Department of Health also has clinics for prenatal care, immunizations and sexually transmitted diseases. "Patients can get a lifetime of health care--preventive, primary, and the full range of specialty care--under one roof," Conerly said.
Most of the patients who will use the mall's clinics will be those on Medicaid or the medically indigent. Last year, UMC's adult outpatient department recorded more than 100,000 visits. They came to clinics that occupied 40,000 square feet of space designed in 1955.
The mall renovation--which provides state-of-the-art facilities--was accomplished at a fraction of the cost of new construction for an ambulatory care center on campus, Conerly noted. And the mall provides 5000 parking spaces for employees and patients. "It gave us a feasible way of responding to the demands of managed care," he said.
Leaders in the African-American community in Jackson, a physician and a former state supreme court judge, approached Dr. Conerly about the mall project two years ago. They were looking for ways the neighborhood could be rescued from the crime and decay that had engulfed the area when the mall became a haven for crime and the target of vandals.
"At first, I thought of the mall as a wonderful solution to our desperate need for more space. As we got further into it, I realized we'd been given a golden opportunity to have in one place a fully integrated health care delivery system," Conerly said.
In addition to the clinics, the mall foundation will lease space to appropriate retail businesses that patients might find useful, such as medical equipment for home use. Other current tenants are a cafeteria and shoe repair shop, orginal mall tenants, the social services division of the City of Jackson, and a payment center for utilities.
The Medical Center's array of services include a full service lab and radiology--with future capabilities for MRI and CT scanners. Rarely will a patient have to be sent to the University Hospital one mile away. Minor surgical procedures can be done at the mall, and patients can get all their physical and occupational therapy at the mall. Patients who've had heart and lung surgery go to the mall for their rehab regimen. The mall concourse has mile markers for indoor walkers who walk for rehab or fitness.
Full-time social workers will help patients access other services in the community.
A diabetes center at the mall offers foot care, a teaching kitchen, its own research lab and meeting rooms.
UMC's adult day center, now located off campus, also moves to the mall to offer geriatric patients an alternative to nursing home placement.
Physicians at the mall can refer their patients to a pharmacy care clinic where specially trained pharmacists can give patients instructions about taking medicine.
Beginning in July, patients who must bring their children with them can leave them in the free day care center at the mall staffed by nurses' aides.
The UMC clinics will also have classroom space for use by the public for support groups and other health related meetings. In the very near future, Conerly said, renovation will begin on the 700 seat movie theater which will serve as a medical conference center--both for the community and for health professionals.
The mall will also be headquarters for the Jackson Heart Study, the largest study of cardiovascular disease risk factors in African Americans ever undertaken by the National Institutes of Health. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of NIH has contracted with UMC and two predominantly African American schools--Jackson State University and Tougaloo College to track 8,000 Jackson residents for life to determine their risk for heart disease.
Neighborhood leaders are optimistic about the mall's positive effect on the area surrounding the mall. Just as a large vacant building can attract crime and vandalism, a large bustling center can repel such activity and attract other businesses.
Conerly says the only difficulty has been finding models to go by so "we won't re-invent the wheel." But he's found there are none.
"We're really in new territory in health care delivery," he said.
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