                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

DEFINITIONS (§ 15.2-5369)

As used in this chapter, unless the context requires a different meaning:
		&#8220;Authority&#8221; means any political subdivision, a body politic and
corporate, created, organized, and operated pursuant to the provisions of this
chapter or, if such Authority is abolished, the board, body, authority,
department, or officer succeeding to the principal functions thereof or to whom
the powers given by this chapter are given by law.
		&#8220;Bond&#8221; includes any interest bearing obligation, including
promissory notes.
		&#8220;Commissioner&#8221; means the State Health Commissioner.
		&#8220;Cooperative agreement&#8221; means an agreement among two or more
hospitals for the sharing, allocation, consolidation by merger or other
combination of assets, or referral of patients, personnel, instructional
programs, support services, and facilities or medical, diagnostic, or laboratory
facilities or procedures or other services traditionally offered by hospitals.
		&#8220;Hospital&#8221; includes any health center and health provider under
common ownership with the hospital and means any and all providers of dental,
medical, and mental health services, including all related facilities and
approaches thereto and appurtenances thereof. Dental, medical, and mental health
facilities includes any and all facilities suitable for providing hospital,
dental, medical, and mental health care, including any and all structures,
buildings, improvements, additions, extensions, replacements, appurtenances,
lands, rights in lands, franchises, machinery, equipment, furnishing,
landscaping, approaches, roadways, and other facilities necessary or desirable
in connection therewith or incidental thereto (including, without limitation,
hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care
facilities, self-care facilities, mental health facilities, wellness and health
maintenance centers, medical office facilities, clinics, outpatient surgical
centers, alcohol, substance abuse and drug treatment centers, dental care
clinics, laboratories, research facilities, sanitariums, hospices, facilities
for the residence or care of elderly or chronically ill individuals or
individuals with disabilities, residential facilities for nurses, interns, and
physicians and any other kind of facility for the diagnosis, treatment,
rehabilitation, prevention, or palliation of any human illness, injury,
disorder, or disability), together with all related and supporting facilities
and equipment necessary and desirable in connection therewith or incidental
thereto, or equipment alone, including, without limitation, kitchen, laundry,
laboratory, wellness, pharmaceutical, administrative, communications, computer
and recreational facilities and equipment, storage space, mobile medical
facilities, vehicles and other equipment necessary or desirable for the
transportation of medical equipment or the transportation of patients. Dental,
medical, and mental health facilities also includes facilities for
graduate-level instruction in medicine or dentistry and clinics appurtenant
thereto offering free or reduced rate dental, medical, or mental health services
to the public.
		&#8220;Participating locality&#8221; means any county or city in the LENOWISCO
or Cumberland Plateau Planning District Commissions and the Counties of Smyth
and Washington and the City of Bristol with respect to which an authority may be
organized and in which it is contemplated that the Authority will function.

HISTORY: 2007, c. 676; 2013, c. 660; 2015, c. 741; 2023, cc. 148, 149.