By Timothy Cox
tcox@dailystandard.com A new outpatient clinic at Mercer County Community Hospital in Coldwater opens Monday in an attempt to consolidate those services into a single area.
Hospital board members decided last spring to create the clinic, which they hope will lead to a "one-stop" scenario for patients seeking services that do not require an overnight stay at the hospital. The new clinic will be housed on the second floor.
"The Outpatient Center will provide more concise and streamlined care for our outpatient medical patients in a designated area within the hospital," said Diane Wellman, the hospital's nurse manager. "Patients needing outpatient services will have one location dedicated to meeting their needs."
The new center will be open 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Services now being handled in the emergency department, same day surgery suite or regular inpatient rooms will now be served at the new location.
"We have a wide range of patients coming into the hospital that require the use of a room for a limited amount of time -- some on a regular basis," Wellman said. "Some of the services we provide include IV infusions, blood transfusions, wound care, dressing changes, flushing of central lines, injections and a host of other tests and treatments." Outpatient services account for 65 percent of the hospital's business volume so it makes sense to designate a specific area to service those patients, hospital CEO T.J. Padden has said. |
