More can see the doctor
Clinic and therapy center move to new facilities
ARKADELPHIA — Nonemergency medical care could be more accessible and quicker for Clark County residents after the opening of two facilities next to Baptist Health Center in Arkadelphia.
The Baptist Health Family Clinic and the Baptist Health Therapy Center held a grand opening Friday for their new offices at Gathright Medical Plaza on Cypress Road. Billy Haygood, who heads the center, said it was a good day, but a long one.
“We started giving therapy this morning and then closed for the ribbon-cutting and the open house, and we will start again at 4 p.m.,” he said. “We haven’t missed a stride. Patients still hurt and need treatment.”
Haygood said more space means more equipment for more patients. A 14-year veteran of Baptist Health’s therapy center in Arkadelphia, he said he started in the original center, which had only 800 square feet. This is the third location for the center, and he said it includes 3,600 square feet for therapy.
“We have 2,000 square feet of space in the gym alone,” he said.
Greg Stubblefield is administrator of Baptist Health Medical Center in Arkadelphia, which operates the two facilities. He said the new therapy center has 50 percent more exercise equipment than before, so more patients will have access to the services.
Stubblefield said the new family health clinic has the
potential of reducing the number of patients in the hospital’s emergency room because people in need of nonemergency medical care can come to the clinic for help rather than to the hospital’s emergency department.
“We hope that is one of the good things that come out of this clinic,” said Pam Thomason, who has worked for the clinic for 25 years. “We will treat patients from newborn to more than 90. Family health care is like the old-time doctor. You see us first.”
Dr. Shelly Perrin, a family practitioner, is the leading physician at the clinic. She said the clinic is going to be better equipped not only to see more patients, but with a procedure room, the patient can be treated, in some cases, avoiding a stay in the hospital.
“We can do skin procedures, gynecological exams and allergy testing,” she said.
The clinic had been on Fourth Street, closer to downtown Arkadelphia, but Perrin said it is good for the patients that the clinic is now so close to the hospital.
“Say I listen to someone’s chest doing the course of an exam and I hear something that worries me,” she said. “We can walk the patient up to Xray at the hospital, and when they come back, I will have the X-ray sent to me electronically, and we can get treatment started if we need to.”
The clinic was still operating in the old Fourth Street location on Friday when the open house was under way. Cassie Gonzales, advanced nurse practitioner for the clinic, said the equipment was to be moved in Monday, and the clinic was to be ready for patients Tuesday.
Thomason said the clinic is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. one day a week so that patients can make appointments after work hours.
She also said that while the clinic and hospital are working on creating electronic medical records for each patient, 66,000 medical files will be moved to the new office.
The two Baptist Health facilities are only half of the Gathright Medical Plaza, which was created by Marc Carozza, optometrist at Vision Source in Arkadelphia. He said his operation moved to the new location in February, as did the Compassion Women’s Clinic, led by Dr. Michael Carozza, an OB-GYN physician. The clinic is described on its website as operating while adhering to a Christian world view.
Stubblefield said he is happy that Baptist Health is partnering with the brothers in adding the new medical services for Arkadelphia residents.
Staff writer Wayne Bryan can be reached at (501) 244-4460 or wbryan@arkansasonline. com.