A surge of medical services have opened in Cedar Park and Leander, with at least 21 new health care practices and facilities opening in the area and additional developments planned to open in late 2015 and early 2016.
Health care services, including mental health, sports medicine, nutrition, and emergency care have become more abundant in the area since January 2014. Specialists such as allergists and podiatrists as well as nutritionists have also opened practices in Cedar Park.
Despite the rapid growth within one year, more developments are on the horizon.
Several new projects are underway, including a pediatrics urgent care and several projects spearheaded by Cedar Park Regional Medical Center. The Austin Diagnostic Clinic plans to occupy space in an office near CPRMC, which is spearheading the first freestanding emergency room in Leander, located at 1751 Crystal Falls Parkway. Many medical agencies are partnering to provide services that patients may have previously had to travel long distances to reach.
Some local health care professionals attribute the increase in medical commerce to physician and community demand for locations in Cedar Park and Leander as well as the projected future growth in the area.
“When we look at the future of this hospital, pediatrics has to be part of the strategic plan,” CPRMC CEO Brad Holland said. “It will continue to grow as a service line. We feel that surrounding ourselves and partnering with some of the most well-known, well-educated and trusted physicians associated and affiliated with Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas is a perfect fit for us and our local community.”
Emergency and specialty services
In 2014 several freestanding ERs opened in the area along with many specialty physician practices.
Freestanding ERs, including Neighbors Emergency Center, which opened on RM 620, and Cedar Park Emergency Center, which opened on Whitestone Boulevard, opened last year. Freestanding ERs treat urgent and emergency conditions and have the capability to handle life-threatening situations. However, surgery is not performed at these facilities. Freestanding ERs can treat injuries and illnesses such as pediatric fevers, broken bones, kidney stones, heart attacks, strokes and lacerations.
St. David’s Emergency Center, located at 14016 N. US 183 at Lakeline Market, opened in July 2014.
In June 2014, Deborah Ryle, CEO of St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center, said the location was chosen because of growth in the area as well as the proximity to Toll 183A, RM 620 and SH 45.
CPRMC hosted a ground breaking ceremony on its Leander freestanding ER in May and is expected to open its doors by early summer 2016. The 9,500-square-foot facility will staff emergency physicians and will have nine patient rooms and medical diagnostic imaging services.
To supply medical services in the area, CPRMC has several partnerships with multispecialty clinics in the area, Holland said, including Austin Regional Clinic.
Multispecialty physicians, or doctors with multiple medical specialties, are also moving into the area, including ADC, which will move into 1401 Medical Parkway, Bldg. C, Cedar Park, near the northeast corner of FM 1431 and Toll 183A next to CPRMC. The building, dubbed Medical Office Building II, will house up to 25 physician practices and will open in the fall. ADC provides 20 different kinds of specialty care, including allergies and immunology, cardiology, endocrinology, pediatrics and urology.
ADC CEO Ghassan Salman said the organization wanted to be close to the hospital for patient convenience and said Holland was the catalyst behind choosing Cedar Park for its next location.
“We were able to help [ADC] identify and recruit high-quality physicians to this market, and that’s been a good partnership,” Holland said. “The hospital benefits by creating services in the Cedar Park [and] Leander area that patients, historically, may have had to travel elsewhere to access. Under this model, we provide more access to high-quality care close to home.”
ADC considers several factors for new locations, including patient surveys, growth and company finances,
Salman said.
“When we look at these three things, we hope that our patients will be happy, that our financials will break even or [be] positive, and the rapidity of the growth sustains expansion,” Salman said. “If all of these were met, we would probably plan to expand within one or two years.”
Pediatrics care
Two upcoming facilities will provide pediatrics care to area residents.
Seton Healthcare Family is partnering with CPRMC to occupy a freestanding pediatrics medical office building under construction near CPRMC.
CPRMC will occupy most of the first floor of the three-story, 75,000-square-foot building and will provide pediatric specialty and urgent care services as well as family diagnostic imaging services. Pediatric Subspecialty Land Co. North is the developer and owner building the facility. The company is composed of pediatric subspecialty physicians, some of which are Seton doctors.
The building is 95 percent leased, and physicians from Seton’s Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, CPRMC and subspecialty pediatric specialists will occupy it, said Steve Dobias, principal with Indianapolis-based Somerset CPA, the consultant firm assisting with the project.
Pediatric specialists at the facility will include neurologists, orthopedists, cardiologists and general surgeons, he said. The office building could be complete in January or February.
The driving force behind CPRMC’s relationship with the pediatrics subspecialists was the demographics in the area, Holland said, specifically referring to the more than 100,000 children that live closer to CPRMC than Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas.
“The strategic advantage that we have is that we have the families and the kids [that live here] because housing is still affordable [and] our land is still developable,” he said.
Although the building will not have capabilities for surgery, Dobias said plans for Phase 2 of the facility could involve constructing a pediatric surgery center. Discussions have also started about a possible third pediatrics facility that would model the pediatric medical office building, but a location has not yet been determined, Dobias said.
Urgent Care for Kids, opening July 1, will offer pediatric after-hours care at 905 E. Whitestone Blvd., Ste. B, Cedar Park. Marketing Director Melissa Bauman said the business has nine locations throughout Texas, and Cedar Park is the business’ newest market.
“We chose to open a location in Cedar Park because it’s just a wonderful community for families to live and grow,” Bauman said.
Physician and family feedback were also contributing factors behind its newest location, she said, and primary care physicians use UCK as a resource for after-hours care such as on weekends and holidays.
Bauman said freestanding ERs, hospitals, primary care physicians and urgent .cares play unique roles in the health care market.
“Cedar Park is not unfamiliar with having health care options—lately options seem to be freestanding ERs, urgent cares [and] primary doctors [that] are on every corner. But there has been a vital piece that has been missing, and we are thrilled to fill that,” Bauman said. “We believe that children should be able to receive specialized pediatrics care for urgent needs. That means not having long waits or having ER copays.”
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