Convenient care center to bring services to Kingwood
A row of cones and a chain-link fence mark the site of the new Memorial Hermann Convenient Care Center in Kingwood.
The 44,450 square foot facility is expected to be completed in the fall of 2016 and will be the seventh Convenient Care Center in the Memorial Hermann Health System.
Memorial Hermann Convenient Care Center in Kingwood will be located at the northeast corner of West Lake Houston Parkway and Kingwood Drive and is part of the proposed Main Street Kingwood Shopping Center, constructed by Lovett Commercial.
The 33-acre retail shopping center will be anchored by a H-EB grocery store, which also is expected to open in the fall of 2016.
Burdette Huffman, vice president of Lovett Commercial, said the company is in the process of finalizing demolition on the property. As a result, the sidewalk had to be demolished and reinstalled
for CenterPoint and the City of Houston.
“We are excited to help redefine one of the most prominent intersections in the Kingwood Community,” Huffman said in a written statement. “Lovett Commercial chose this location because of the strong Kingwood community and because of the opportunity to develop a quality grocery anchored project.”
Huffman said the company has signed a lease with H-E-B and Memorial Hermann and expects to break ground on the development sometime this fall. The Convenient Care Center in Kingwood will be located approximately nine miles from Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital and will house an emergency department, primary care offices, a walk-in clinic, physical therapy space and a diagnostic imaging center.
Heath Rushing, senior vice president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital said the idea behind a Convenient Care Center is to create a medical home for patients in their community.
Rushing said having such access is important to people when they’re in need of health care services.
“The Convenient Care Center is really meant to be a one-stop, highly-coordinated access to adult and pediatric primary care along with specialty physicians, sports medicine and rehabilitation, outpatient imaging and lab services as well as a 24hour emergency room,” Rushing said.
Rushing, a Kingwood resident, was a driving force behind the opening of the Memorial Hermann Convenient Care Center in Summer Creek, a 30,000 square foot facility which opened in January 2013.
Memorial Hermann Convenient Care Center in Summer Creek was the first of its kind for Memorial Hermann and the prototype for all other Convenient Care Centers in the Memorial Hermann Health System.
In October 2014, Memorial Hermann launched its pilot project, a Memorial Hermann Medical Group Clinic and a sports medicine and rehabilitation office at 2855 W. Lake Houston Parkway in Kingwood.
Rushing said the success of the Convenient Care Center in Summer Creek as well as the pilot project in Kingwood demonstrated the need to have an increased presence and service offering in Kingwood.
Kingwood proper is comprised of about 80,000 people spread over a twozip code region.
“The Lake Houston area itself encompasses in its immediate region about 250,000 people,” Rushing said, adding that the goal is to create access points to those who live within the community.
“However, our primary service area is much larger than that. It includes approximately 15 zip codes and closer to about 450,000 people, but really the focus of these convenient care centers has been around the Lake Houston area,” Rushing said.
For Dr. James “Gabe” Hodges, a physician who specializes in internal medicine and pediatrics at Memorial Hermann Medical Group in Kingwood, the opening of the Convenient Care Center means serving patients in a larger facility with greater capabilities.
Hodges, the only fulltime physician at the practice, works alongside Dr. Doan Do, who splits her time between the Kingwood location and the Summer Creek Convenient Care Center.
A new physician, Dr. Anita Shankar, will join the team in September and the group plans to move to the Convenient Care Center upon its official opening, Hodges said.
Hodges said though a lot of the processes of seeing a physician and obtaining lab work will remain the same, the center will allow patients the convenience of having services such as X-rays and CT scans available onsite.
The services will save families the trouble of having to travel to different places to obtain necessary tests and bloodwork, Hodges said. In addition, the facility will have a fixed MRI, which Hodges said is an added asset.
“The fixed MRI is very specialized, more specialized than a detailed CAT Scan,” Hodges said. “Normally that’s usually only available in hospital settings, so to have that available in the Convenient Care Center is a huge advantage.”
Hodges said that a fixed MRI can help diagnose cases ranging from orthopedics and sports medicine to abdominal pain and neurological issues.
Hodges said he is also working on his certification to manage the Sports Concussion Management Program, which is a partnership between Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital and Humble ISD.
As part of the program, Hodges and Memorial Hermann athletic trainers travel to high school football games and are able to assist students from the sidelines if they happen to receive a concussion.
Students can come to Hodges’s office for follow up care to ensure they receive proper treatment. Hodges uses a computerized assessment tool called Immediate PostConcussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing to determine their level of injury. Hodges said any student with Humble ISD can see him at his office for care following any concussion-related injury.
Hodges said the goal is to ensure they return to full health so they can go back and play sports when they’re ready.
“A lot of times if these kids get hurt over the weekend, then they have no one to see and sometimes busy doctors’ practices are not able to see someone until a week later or later on in the week,” Hodges said. “What we’re trying to do is fast track them in to be seen and have good quality care right away.”
Jim Brown, senior vice president and CEO of Ambulatory Services for the Memorial Hermann Health System said that the Convenient Care Centers offer the opportunity to consolidate medical services into a single setting.
Prior to the convenient care strategy, patients may have had to visit multiple sites to obtain proper treatment, Brown said.
Brown said by incorporating Convenient Care Centers, patients can visit one location that’s easier to access and navigate.
All seven of the Convenient Care Centers will have 24-hour emergency departments as well as walk-in access and extended hours for the primary care medical clinic, Brown said.
Since the opening of the Summer Creek location, Memorial Hermann has opened centers in Pearland, at Cinco Ranch in South Katy and at Sienna Plantation in Missouri City, Brown said. Three additional facilities, planned to open in Cypress, Spring and Kingwood, have been publicized as under development, Brown said.
Memorial Hermann Health System is the largest not-for-profit health system in Southeast Texas. There are currently 13 hospitals within the system, including four located in the Texas Medical Center. Brown said that Convenient Care Centers are located in areas that have some degree of distance from the host hospitals, yet offer all the services of a hospital, short of a hospital bed.
“Houston is believed to be over-bedded. There’s a surplus of hospital beds in the community,” Brown said. “We are expanding a number of our hospitals, but the convenient care strategy affords us the opportunity to treat and transfer patients to our existing network of hospitals.”
Brown said that while there’s not a price differentiation between the emergency room at a Convenient Care Center and one in a Memorial Hermann hospital, Convenient Care Centers offer a way to channel the nonemergency population to a less costly venue.
Patients who need a higher level of care will be transferred to Memorial Hermann Northeast, Memorial HermannTexas Medical Center or Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital.
Brown said the goal is to expedite care and decant volume from the hospital emergency rooms, allowing people to get comparable services close to home.
“This strategy, not bearing the cost of additional hospital beds in a city that is already overbedded, allows us to touch more markets quickly,” Brown said. “Consumers are demanding it. They want access to our high quality services close to where they live.”
“This strategy, not bearing the cost of additional hospital beds in a city that is already over-bedded, allows us to touch more markets quickly. Consumers are demanding it. They want access to our high quality services close to where they live.” Jim Brown, Senior vice president and CEO of Ambulatory Services for the Memorial Hermann Health System