Construction to start next year on Dignity Health urgent-care facility

Dignity Health Arizona plans to open a seven-day-a-week urgent-care facility next year before beginning construction of a hospital in 2016.

Suzanne Pfister, vice president of external affairs at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, said the health-care company, formerly know as Catholic Healthcare West, chose to build the new facilities in Maricopa because of the availability of affordable land and “the fact that we’re treating patients (from) Maricopa already.”

The company’s Ahwatukee urgent-care clinic and Chandler Regional Medical Center already see Maricopa residents.

The local urgent-care clinic will open in a retail center planned on the northern side of the city. Neither Pfister nor the city’s Economic Development Director Micah Miranda would reveal any details on the retail center.

The urgent-care clinic will be staffed with physicians and nurses, be open to patients of all ages and have on-site radiology and lab capabilities. It will be open noon to 9 p.m. daily, including holidays.

The facility will offer call-ahead service allowing patients to call the clinic starting at 7 a.m. Clinic staff will then alert them when they can come in.

Although Maricopa already has an urgent-care center operated by Desert Ridge, Pfister said “we believe we have a good base for it.”

Miranda said several competing health-care centers in the city should have a positive impact on both the city and the facilities themselves.

“The clustering of health-care providers is typically a good thing,” Miranda said, adding it can present opportunities for different clinics and providers to “form medical relationships.”

Banner Health Center opened a 41,000-square-foot facility on Porter Road near Pacana Park in May with six staff physicians practicing family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics and women’s health. It has 36 examination rooms and on-site imaging and laboratory services. Banner officials have said the facility could double in size and include an outpatient surgical center.

Dignity Health’s planned hospital would be 34,800-square-foot emergency, two-story facility on 18.56 acres at State Route 347 and Smith-Enke Road. Construction is expected to begin in 2016.

The hospital will have 22 emergency-department treatment rooms, two surgical suites, four patient beds and outpatient imaging.

“It’s an attractive parcel on which, if things change, we can change,” Pfister said of the land where the hospital will be built.

Although initially the hospital would likely not offer specialized medical services, she said, “It could evolve to that in the future.”

If that happened, she said, it would be similar to a model currently in use at St. Joseph’s where specialists, often with offices at nearby medical centers, are available at the hospital several times a week and “have a presence” on the hospital campus.

“It’s a progression starting with an urgent care and then expanding to acute care,” Pfister said. “Chances are there will be a medical center nearby.” 

Miranda said both the urgent-care clinic and the hospital will have long-term, positive impacts on the city’s economy.

“The ripple effect is huge,” Miranda said. “One of the things that happens when you have a big hospital come in is all the support services that crop up.”

For example, he listed laundry services for the hospital linen, florists, accounting services and other medical specialty services.