Brain and Spine Centers Jockey for Position

Down the street from where I live, two locally owned coffee shops are situated right next to each other. They each feature a welcoming ambiance, boast free Wi-Fi, and offer a similar variety of coffee and espresso purchased from South American fair trade farmers—you know, all the prerequisites for the modern café.

They are both equally delightful and I pretty much choose whichever one has a shorter line when I stop by. But every time I can't help but wonder, who was here first? Who saw the empty storefront next door to a preexisting café and thought, I can compete with that. This will be a perfect spot for my incredibly similar coffee joint.

Well, a comparable situation is currently playing out in the central Ohio healthcare market

In April 2012 OhioHealth announced the largest and most expensive project in its history when it unveiled plans to build a $321 million 10-story tower at its Riverside Methodist Hospital campus to house its brain and spine services.

Then last week, Ohio State University released plans to place its new brain and spine hospital in space to be vacated by the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital.