Med Center turns dirt on area’s first hybrid emergency room, urgent care facility

Published 2:59 pm Wednesday, March 19, 2025

By Jack Dobbs

High winds and cloudy skies did not stop Med Center Health from breaking ground Wednesday on an upcoming combined emergency room and urgent care clinic in The Hub on Lovers Lane, something Med Center Health Board Chairman Eli Jackson said has been “a long time coming.”

“The Med Center Health emergency and urgent care project is the first in the region where it’s a combined, hybrid facility,” Jackson told attendees. “… It will hopefully reduce the strain on emergency rooms and … enhance the care for everyone in the region.”

Once it opens in the spring of 2026, the 12,000 square-foot Med Center Health Emergency + UrgentCare will provide access to emergency room services and urgent care under the same roof. A Med Center Health press release states patients will be evaluated by emergency medicine physicians to determine what level of treatment is needed.

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Patients at this facility will be billed for the services they receive, the release states, contrasting from most emergency rooms where patients are billed for an ER visit.

“If they need a higher level of care, then they will be sent to the other side of the building and be billed accordingly there,” Jackson told the Daily News after the ceremony.

“A lot of people would go to the ER for stuff that could be handled at an urgent care,” he said. “So not only is our wait time much longer at the ER, their billing process is much more expensive, so we’re trying to eliminate that,” he said.

Just across the road from the site is an existing Med Center urgent care facility. Jackson said once the new one opens, that facility will be closed and its services will be absorbed into the new one.

Katrina Wood, Med Center Health executive vice president and chief nursing officer, said the facility will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

While solid employment numbers are not yet known, the facility is expected to employ around a dozen staff and is expected to have a 12-bed capacity. A cost figure for construction was not disclosed.

“It’ll be staffed 24/7 with a physician for sure and at least two nurses,” Wood said. “Then you have your radiology staff as well to pick up X-rays and CT scans, ultrasound, all those services will be available.”

Wood said the aim for this facility is to process those who need attention for less acute issues, such as broken bones, sprains or respiratory illness. However, it’s not intended to fully replace standard hospital emergency rooms.

“The things that you should be calling an ambulance for, those things are still going to need to go over to a main hospital emergency department,” she said. “But, (if) I have some abdominal pain, belly pain and just need some extra bloodwork and maybe a CT scan … that can be done right here.”

Jack covers city government for the Daily News. Originally from Simpson County, he attended Western Kentucky University and graduated in 2022 with a degree in journalism.

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