Kendall Regional Medical Center celebrated the opening of their $10 million Town & Country ER with a grand opening community event on June 30. The freestanding emergency room will offer full service emergency care (including pediatrics) within the 10,500-square-foot facility, caring for patients with minor illness and injury, heart concerns, major medical concerns including burns and overdosing, respiratory issues, neurological concerns (such as head injuries and seizures) and life issues like animal bites, allergic reactions and cuts and wounds.
“The advantage to coming to our facility is that we’re a full-service emergency department,” says Joseph Averbach, MD, medical director of emergency medicine for Kendall Regional Medical Center. “We can offer all services: CAT scan, ultrasound and complete on-site lab services, unlike an urgent care.” Also of note: the center is staffed by board certified emergency medicine physicians and nurses. Says Averbach, “We can handle the sicker patients.”
Growing in popularity around the country, freestanding emergency rooms offer the same benefits and quality of care as hospital emergency rooms, operating 24 hours a day and making use of high-tech diagnostic tools. Freestanding ER’s are legally required to operate 24 hours a day, are always staffed with on-site doctors and provide all members of the community with a medical screening. The Town and Country center offers patients access to more than 40 medical personnel and was initially conceived as a way to address the lack of emergency services in the area.
“There is going to be a definite volume difference, the waits should be much less than a traditional emergency room,” says Averbach of the 11-bed center, which will gain a sister freestanding ER in Doral ER in Doral in early 2019. “Patient services are superior. We are offering patients better care than many traditional emergency rooms in Florida.”
Patients who are found to be serious enough to admit are transported directly from the ER to Kendall Regional, where they bypass the on-site ER and are able to go directly to a room. “Town and Country was strategic in the sense that traffic is always a challenge,” says Kendall Regional’s Director of Community Relations, Peter Jude, who adds the center has been working closely with local police and fire rescue. “It’s a busy area that needed an ER.”
The ER is located at 11800 Sherry Lane (corner of 88th Street – Kendall Drive & 117th Avenue. Telephone 305-630-7900. Visit kendallmed.com for more information.