Cleveland-based University Hospitals is bringing its medical services to Medina County next week with the opening of its newest outpatient facility.
University Hospitals spent about $10 million renovating and updating the former Waterford Office Park off state Route 18 to transform it into the new UH Medina Health Center.
When it opens Monday, the health center will offer primary and specialty physician practices, services from Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and the UH Harrington-McLaughlin Heart & Vascular Institute, an urgent care center, a corporate health program and lab and radiology services.
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UH decided to boost its presence in the region after several primary-care and specialty practices based in the Medina area joined the health system in recent years, said Dr. Michael Nochomovitz, president of University Hospitals Physician Services.
”It really started with the alignment of the physicians and then the need to provide additional services to their patients,” he said. ”We basically are building this around primary and specialty-care physicians who were in the community.”
The new center is ”accessible and very patient friendly,” Nochomovitz said. For example, he said, patients will be able to have advanced diagnostic tests such as cardiac CT scans performed in Medina and instantly reviewed by specialists at the main campus without having to make a trip to the main campus.
The health center initially will have 75 employees and about 30 physicians. In addition, a team of doctors will rotate to the site to staff the urgent care center seven days a week.
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UH also is spending about $3 million to expand and upgrade the nearby UH Sharon Health Center, which houses the Sharon Family Physicians Medical practice. The doctor group joined the health system last year.
Large hospitals from Akron and Cleveland increasingly are establishing a bigger presence in growing, suburban communities.
The movement follows a national trend in which urban hospitals are following their patients into the suburbs.
Medina County, in particular, is attracting a lot of competition.
In 2009, the Cleveland Clinic entered a deal with Medina Hospital for the community hospital to join the health system.
Medina Hospital is located less than a mile away from the new UH Medina Health Center.
The community hospital deal
came a year after another proposed affiliation with UH —the Cleveland Clinic’s main rival — didn’t pan out.
Last year, Akron General Health System teamed with Akron Children’s Hospital to open a 24-hour emergency department attached to the Health & Wellness Center-West off state Route 18 in Bath Township.
Akron-based Summa Health System also is constructing a 100,000-square-foot outpatient medical center on state Route 18 in Montville and Medina townships that is scheduled to open in November. In addition to a surgery center and other outpatient services, Summa’s project will include a full-service satellite emergency department.
University Hospitals’ Medina County projects are part of its massive expansion throughout Northeast Ohio.
In recent years, the health system opened outpatient health centers in Twinsburg and Concord, unveiled a new neonatal intensive-care unit at its Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland and launched major construction projects, including a new cancer hospital on the main campus and a new hospital in Beachwood.
Cheryl Powell is a health reporter for The Akron Beacon Journal, the daily newspaper in Akron and a syndication partner of MedCity News.
