NAUGATUCK — Saint Mary’s Hospital opened an urgent care facility at 58 Maple St. May 20, more than a month after doors to its new, affiliated, primary care practice opened at the same site.
Saint Mary’s also plans to open a multispecialty office at the location offering services such as gastroenterology, cardiology and gynecology in the near future.
“The whole concept is to draw our patients to be cared in their own neighborhood, instead of having them go to a specialist in the hospital,” said Dr. John Testa, medical director of Trinity Health of New England Medical Group for Saint Mary’s.
The hospital’s gradual move into the new, yellow-brick development between Naugatuck Town Hall and Route 8 is part of the organization’s plans for population health management, an initiative meant to change the dynamic between the hospital and general public to treat patients proactively in out-patient settings.
The new, spacious offices are also an upgrade over the providers’ former sites on New Haven Road, with enough space to allow them to expand their services.
“This should take care of all of our patient’s needs, except emergency or surgical needs,” Testa said.
The aim is to have the offices’ staff members communicate with each other on patients’ behalf: if the primary-care physician decides a patient needs testing, the patient can be walked to the adjacent multispecialty suite and seen the same day, schedule permitting.
The 5,460-square-foot urgent care facility on the first floor is staffed by one or two medical providers and one nurse. Patients can check in to a private area separated from the large waiting room and be seen in one of seven exam rooms.
There’s an ambulance bay in the back of the facility.
The facility contains radiology and EKG equipment. Test results are sent electronically to radiologists at the hospital in Waterbury, reviewed and returned within a few minutes.
Since opening, the urgent care center has been averaging about 40 patients per day for treatment and about 30 a day for various lab tests, according to nurse Robin Cracco, off-site manager for Saint Mary’s.
The facility also has two blood stations. A courier runs the samples to the hospital for testing and the results are returned within “a couple hours” depending on the test, according to Cracco.
A 3,310-square-foot physical and occupational therapy office attached to the urgent care center is equipped with a treadmill, exercise balls and weights.
The 3,310-square-foot primary care offices of Dr. Frank Longo and Dr. Tracey Wiles, staffed by a team of eight, opened April 8. The practices, which relocated from 1177 New Haven Road, feature eight patient rooms and will be connected to the future multispecialty offices.
The medical offices are part of a new, roughly 35,000-square-foot building built on the site, known locally as Parcel C, by developers John Lombard and Rob Oris, working under the name Heritage Downtown, LLC.
Lombard and Oris bought the land, which had sat vacant for years, from the borough for $150,000.
The public is invited to a grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony Friday, at 7:45 a.m. at 58 Maple St.
Elio Gugliotti contributed to this article.
