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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Avera Medical Group is adding an emergency department to a new clinic it plans to build on the west side of Sioux Falls.
Construction on the three-story facility at 28th Street and Marion Road is scheduled to start this fall, the Argus Leader reported (http://argusne.ws/1Lhk3yi ).
Dr. Dave Kapaska, president and CEO of Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center, said the health system looked at demographic changes and population projections and found that 45,000 people are living west of Interstate 29 without close access to an emergency department.
The emergency department will be staffed full time by a physician, nurses and a care team and will include enhanced imaging services and CT scanning.
The 70,000-square-foot clinic also will include urgent care to handle patients with less serious conditions such as sprains or sinus infections. Urgent care can help with overflow from the emergency center, Kapaska said.
"There's a queuing challenge everywhere," he said. "The hope would be with three options (in the Avera system locally), we'd be prepared for that. We feel like we've right-sized it and built it in a way we could add to it if we need to."
Patients who need to be admitted will be transferred to Avera McKennan or the Avera Heart Hospital at Avera's cost, he said.
"We move patients back and forth depending on what their needs are semi-regularly, as needed, and the patients aren't charged for that," he said.
Other services offered in the building will include family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, behavioral health counseling, a laboratory, radiology and an Avera Breast Center location.
The clinic is scheduled to open late next summer.
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Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com
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