Partners HealthCare opens first urgent-care clinic outside of Boston
Partners in August said it planned to open as many as 12 urgent care clinics in the next three years.
Partners HealthCare, one of the largest hospital operators in Massachusetts, this week opened its first walk-in urgent care clinic as more hospital operators rush to open clinics to provide better, more accessible care for pressing medical issues.
Partners' first clinic is located in Brookline, which borders Boston.
[Also: Partners HealthCare to open urgent care network]
Partners in August said it planned to open as many as 12 urgent care clinics in the next three years, with clinics in Newton and Watertown slated to open in the fall.
The Brookline facility was launched in partnership with MedSpring Urgent Care, a clinic operator that runs facilities in Texas and Illinois.
The clinics will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, serving patients with appointments or walk-ins. The facility has its own lab and x-ray machines.
"These centers will offer our community an affordable, quality health care alternative to an emergency room," said Gregg Meyer, chief clinical officer at Partners.
Partners, which runs the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, is responsible for overseeing the quality of care in the clinic, and patients needing further care or observation will be directed back to a Partners hospital or their primary physician to continue with their care.
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As hospitals face more pressure to control costs and include the quality of care, especially since new payment models link quality directly to reimbursement, the focus on many hospitals is to give access to care outside the hospital setting. For emergency care, that means urgent care clinics, which can treat immediate medical conditions and help ease the poor experience patients can receive in a packed emergency room. At the same time, if more people visit clinics for basic urgent care, emergency room volume would fall, making the care their better for people with pressing conditions.
For-profit operator Tenet Healthcare has also opened dozens of urgent-care clinics
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