By Mark Ambrogi
The St. Vincent Neighborhood Hospital concept has arrived in Noblesville.
Opening at 2 p.m. today, the facility will specialize in 24/7 emergency services and inpatient care.
“This is a full hospital,” said Dr. Richard Fogel, chief clinical officer for St. Vincent. “We’ve got seven ER beds and eight in-patient beds. We can handle pretty much everything that comes through the door. We are just a small hospital where we can bring the hospital close to the patients. This is the first one in our market.”
The 17,000-square feet hospital is at 9460 E. 146th St. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held July 6.
“We don’t do surgeries, but anyone with an emergency or anyone who needs in-patient stay can come here,” Fogel said. “We offer a full range of services. We have a full laboratory and radiology suite. We’re really excited about the opportunity to make care very patient-centric. We want to make it easy for patients to get their care. By bringing the care right into their neighborhoods, we think that creates a better patient experience. We are using the latest technology that is available to make their care as good as possible.”
Fogel said the object is to have patients being seen within 15 minutes or less from the time of their arrival. Then Fogel said goal is for the turnaround time for radiology procedures or imaging to be 30 minutes or less.
“If you call for ambulance and this is the nearest facility, we would hope they would bring you here,” Fogel said. “We’re not an urgent care. We are a hospital with an emergency room.”
Fogel said if an emergency room physician evaluated a patient and determined that person needed surgery, the patient would be transferred to another St. Vincent hospital.
There is a pharmacy between the emergency rooms and in-patient rooms, which will make it easier for medicine to reach the patients more quickly.
Additional neighborhood hospitals are planned for Avon, Plainfield and the Castleton area of Indianapolis later this year and in 2018.
“We’re excited about the concept,” Fogel said. “We think this is a great step forward in bring care closer to patients wherever they are.”
There is expected to be a staff of approximately 30. Fogel said on any given shift, there would be several nurses and ER physicians.
For more, visit stvincentneighborhoodhospital.org.
