EPIC Opens New Urgent Care for Beaver Medical Group
December 08, 2008
On Monday, December 8, 2008, EPIC Management, LP successfully opened a new Urgent Care Center in Redlands for Beaver Medical Group. Fred Hollaus, Chief Operations Officer, and Don Stuckey, Vice President of Operations at EPIC, worked with interior designer, Kristen Scarborough, to design the new Urgent Care Center.
The center has eighteen beds in nine exam rooms, two procedure rooms, a hydration room and four observation units that allow nurses to keep an eye on acute care patients. There are also facilities in the building for lab testing and performing X-rays..
The center can accommodate up to 200 patients per day. On opening day, 88 patients were treated at the Redlands Urgent Care Center.
Research at EPIC revealed that Beaver’s patients in Redlands had a need for an urgent care center within Redlands. EPIC also realized that the new facility would decrease volume in the Banning and Highland urgent care centers.
They can just drive around the corner or walk down the street," said Rita Robles, EPIC’s Manager of the Urgent Care Center. She said patients have been impressed by the new facility. The center, along with the other two Beaver urgent care facilities, is open 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., every day of the year.
"Our goal in expanding our urgent care centers is to serve the medical needs of our patients in a manner that also responds to their scheduling preferences," said John Goodman, CEO of EPIC Management.
To better serve patients, EPIC’s staff at the Banning Urgent Care Center began a pilot program a few months ago that allows patients to pre-register. They can call ahead and shorten their wait times by being screened by a nurse and advised when to come in. Because of the success of the program, all three urgent care centers now offer the service and encourage patients to call ahead.
"They love being able to call ahead," said Jennifer Santibanez, RN, EPIC’s Nurse Manager at the Redlands Urgent Care Center. She said that it helps people with medical problems get help after work when their primary care physician may not be available or get care for their kids after regular office hours.
The pre-registration program not only reduces wait times, it also saves lives by identifying potential heart attack or stroke patients and directing them to the hospital.
"The nurse evaluates their symptoms, makes sure that it is appropriate for them to be seen here first, and if not directs them to the appropriate level of care, whether that would be to call 911, or go to the emergency room. If they are appropriate to be seen here, then the nurse determines how soon they need to come in," Santibanez said.
"While we encourage patients to maintain close relationships with their personal physicians," Goodman said, "we recognize that for some of their health-care needs, patients frequently prefer the flexibility of simply walking in to the center for access to our urgent care physicians or the convenience of visiting our urgent care center after hours for access during evenings, weekends or holidays throughout the year. And, with our Call Ahead program dedicated to reducing wait times, we hope to make our patients' experience even better."
Beaver Medical Group Urgent Care Center is located in the Redlands Medical Center Building at 245 Terracina Blvd., Suite 102.
For more information, visit www.beavermedicalgroup.com.