ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp [.fow1-1]signed[.fow1-1] a number of health-care bills Friday, including the most significant changes in decades to Georgia’s law governing hospital construction and new [.fow1-2]medical[.fow1-2] services.

Most of the changes include actions aimed at increasing access to quality [.fow1-2]medical[.fow1-2] care in rural Georgia, an issue gaining importance as economic development efforts continue to pay off by creating new jobs in rural towns.

“The need for health care in all parts of our state is only going to increase,” Kemp said during a bill [.fow1-1]signing[.fow1-1] ceremony on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens. “We’re creating problems because we’re growing so much.

Since the General Assembly passed Georgia’s Certificate of Need (CON) law in 1979, people wishing to build a new [.fow2-1]health-care facility[.fow2-1] or provide a new [.fow1-2]medical[.fow1-2] service have been required to prove the [.fow2-1]facility[.fow2-1] or service is needed in that town.

Politicians against the law have long argued the CON process is so difficult and expensive that it delays and sometimes blocks efforts to bring more health-care services to rural counties where there are already so few.

“It was [stopping] small towns from improving access to health care,” said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has made CON changes a major [.fow2-2]priority[.fow2-2].

With House Bill 1339, new hospitals in rural counties do not have to obtain a CON if they plan to have a full-time emergency room, accept mental health and [.fow2-3]substance-abuse[.fow2-3] patients, participate in Medicaid, and offer a training program.

“[It] … will [make the Certificate of Need process easier for hospitals], especially in the areas of new equipment and building improvements,” said Monty Veazey, president and CEO of the Tifton-based Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals.

“We hope this bill will be allowed to take effect for several years before being [looked at again], to see how it affects [the] health care [system] and patients...”