Memphis Rx: Merge Med and Pyramid

Memphians may be missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to substantially and permanently improve our city, county and region while transforming two problems - the financially ailing Regional Medical Center at Memphis and the empty Pyramid - into major assets.

The Med is an outdated, landlocked facility. It offers essential but high-cost, low-revenue programs caring for patients in its trauma, burn, high-risk pregnancy and newborn services units. The majority of The Med's other business involves serving the poor and uninsured from West Tennessee, North Mississippi and East Arkansas.

The Med is actively looking for partners to stabilize its financial situation. However, hospitals that are underfunded, outdated, and have a combination of high-cost services and low-paying clientele generally find it difficult to attract such "partners."

In short, The Med, as presently constituted, will likely continue to be financially and facility challenged.

Closing the publicly owned hospital would immediately create an alarming service gap in the health care network of our region. But if The Med is to continue to provide contemporary care, it must spend the money to modernize its facilities and continually upgrade its technology.

The question, then, is where to make that investment. The Med's landlocked location makes the retooling process complicated, slow and expensive.

It is also important to note that Memphis' hospitals, taken together, would be hard-pressed to meet the demand for services in the event of a regional catastrophic event. Their operating margins do not permit them to carry the excess facility and staff capacity that would be needed to ramp up for an emergency such as a pandemic flu outbreak, a bioterrorist attack or a natural disaster. Two major Downtown facilities would have a key role in such an event, however. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has an active research facility and program focused on potential catastrophic events such as a pandemic outbreak of influenza. Likewise, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center has a biocontainment lab that is a component of the federal network of labs built to address potential catastrophic events such as bioterror attacks.

As long as The Pyramid remains mothballed, this unique structure serves only as a monument to a failed planning process. But indeed, its uniqueness may be its most positive asset. Its big, open spaces might be reworked to become the new home of the Regional Medical Center at Memphis.

The Pyramid's location on the Mississippi River at Interstate 40 provides easy access from three states and is convenient not only to other Downtown facilities engaged in medical research and emergency planning but also to the airport and FedEx.

Further, The Pyramid contains enough space to build an infirmary capacity able to respond to major health-threatening events. The faculty, residents and students at nearby UTHSC could easily and quickly provide staff to respond to a catastrophe.

Additionally, The Pyramid has enough space to house such related functions as homeland security programs, hazardous materials response teams, and emergency command and control headquarters. With these federal, state, and local agencies, the empty arena could become a coordinated and comprehensive regional crisis response center - and with Mississippi and Arkansas "partners" there would be a strong probability of federal funding through the Homeland Security and Defense departments and designated earmarks.

The Med's existing buildings and land have a clear tangible value, which could be harvested and used to offset some of the costs of renovating The Pyramid while contributing expansion space for biomedical research and development in Downtown's Research Park area.

If we were able to reinvent The Pyramid and The Med in this way, the Mid-South would become the only region in the country to achieve such a high level of preparedness. Granted, the project would not be flashy, but it would secure medical resources for those most in need, either by condition or financial status. It would make it possible for this region to respond quickly and effectively to virtually any emergency.

With this response capability in place, Memphis would have a very real advantage when recruiting potential employers. The housing, shopping, elementary and charter schools and other amenities already in Downtown Memphis certainly are complementary features for those who would work in hospital, clinic and research jobs. Plus, land in the heart of the Research Park would be made available for new research and development agents.

So far, the choices for the reuse of The Pyramid include a retailer focused on dealing death to animals and an amusement park featuring death-defying rides. Why not create instead a center that would actually save lives, provide essential specialized health services, coordinate emergency response agencies, and be available for all in the region?

Raymond H. Colson of Memphis retired in 2005 as vice chancellor for administration and director of planning at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.