NEW BEDFORD — The to-be-constructed Saint Anne’s Hospital urgent care facility at Riverside Landing is a sign of changes stemming from health care reform, said John Jurczyk, chief operating officer at St. Anne’s.
“We’re seeing with reform that care is shifting more and more out of the organized medical setting into these little centers, to the home, to the physician’s office,” Jurczyk said. “So we’re in keeping with the times.”
Jurczyk spoke with reporters after a groundbreaking at the Coggeshall Street site, where Saint Anne’s plans to open a 10,000-square-foot urgent care facility next fall.
The facility is 3.5 miles away from a Southcoast Health System urgent care center in Fairhaven, which opened in August. Jurczyk said the addition isn’t about competition.
The Saint Anne’s center is a collaboration between the hospital and Hawthorn Medical Associates, both of which are under the Steward Health Care System network. It will offer walk-in outpatient care for non-life-threatening conditions when a patient’s primary care physician is not available or when emergency room care is not needed, according to Saint Anne’s.
Located in between McDonald’s and Taco Bell, with Market Basket nearby, it is slated to be open seven days a week from noon to midnight.
Saint Anne’s president Craig A. Jesiolowski said the facility will have 12 private rooms and an on-site diagnostic laboratory including X-ray, ultrasound, CAT scan and EKG services.
“Providing the right care at the right time in the right location is not only good health care, it is an essential element in our push to improve the quality of medical care while creating greater access at a lower cost,” Jesiolowski said.
Before donning a hard hat and sinking a shovel into a heap of dirt, Mayor Jon Mitchell said the city is pleased at the addition of jobs and health care services to the area.
“This site has come alive,” the mayor said of the Riverside Landing development. “We are increasing our tax base … we will turn a blighted property, a blighted area, into something that is brighter and more welcoming.”
Mitchell said the job generation happens as a result of good planning and constructive relationships with developers.
“That highway is an asset to this property, that river is an asset to this property, that neighborhood is an asset to this property — it has to be all woven together.”
Sister Vimala Vadakumpadan, chairwoman of the board of Saint Anne’s Hospital, gave a prayer at the start of the event.
“May the jobs created by this project sustain families who call this city their home,” she said.
The facility is being funded by a $3.3 million loan by Rockland Trust, as part of the New Markets Tax Credits program, according to Saint Anne’s.
Source: The Standard Times
By SIMÓN RIOS
srios@s-t.com
November 09, 2013 12:00 AM
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20131109/NEWS/311090321