C.J. Gish
HCA Florida Healthcare announced this week the opening of its new freestanding HCA Florida Gainesville Emergency Room located near I-75 in southwest Gainesville.
The groundbreaking for the 13,000-square-foot facility near took place on Feb. 23, 2023, and will provide emergency care for children and adults. The ER officially opened on Tuesday, Feb. 13.
According to an HCA press release, board-certified emergency medicine physicians and nurses will staff the ER 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, “just like an emergency room that is housed within the walls of a hospital.”
The facility, located at 4094 SW 41st Blvd., features 11 private treatment rooms, digital ultrasound, an on-site laboratory, CT capabilities, digital diagnostic and portable X-rays.
“The ER’s location off I-75 and Archer Road make it a convenient access point for long-time residents and visitors alike,” Eric Lawson, CEO of HCA Florida North Florida Hospital, said in a statement. “Our team is incredibly excited to be able to serve our community with world-class emergency care at this beautiful new facility.”
The facility is located on a 40-acre parcel and marks the first of two phases for HCA. Phase two will be the construction of a 90-bed HCA Gainesville Hospital that will include medical research, critical care patients and inpatient rehab. The hospital will also include four operating rooms, a cardiac catheterization laboratory and inpatient/outpatient service.
The opening of the new freestanding ER’s opening comes as HCA Florida North Florida Hospital struggles to resume its full surgery load due to equipment-related issues that led to a full shutdown of all surgeries on Jan. 17.
Some emergency surgeries resumed the next day, but elective surgeries were stopped for weeks as mobile response units repaired what on-site technicians described as “probably thousands” of surgical instruments.
North Florida Hospital officials, including Lawson, have declined to comment on what caused the stoppage, the number of patients affected, or to what extent elective surgeries have resumed.
Meanwhile, patients are either having to wait to reschedule procedures or are going to other area hospitals for surgery.
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration visited North Florida Hospital on Feb. 6, and a report is expected as early as next week.
We see more free-standing Emergency ‘Rooms’ quite often. If the roads around Gainesville weren’t so congested that likely wouldn’t be necessary. Road engineering is probably a combination of art as well as science and so few cities ever get it right. Traffic congestion signals, I mean ‘control’ signals, definitely seem more like they are designed to congest traffic rather than actually contribute to the better flow.
I wonder if the so-called transportation officials/engineers should also spend more study time on hydraulics along with traffic? There’s a reason many people call them STOP lights, and they are SOOO expensive. More than just the initial costs of study and installation, they contribute greatly to fuel consumption while so many vehicles sit at red lights.