University of Florida Health celebrated the opening of its newest freestanding emergency room, the UF Health Emergency Center – Kanapaha, Monday, September 26th. The new facility will provide access to emergency care for residents of southwest Gainesville.
The facility expands emergency care at UF Health to four sites, including the UF Health Shands E.R. on the hospital’s main campus, the UF Health Shands Pediatric E.R. at the UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, and the UF Health Shands Emergency Center – Springhill on Northwest 39th Avenue.
“Visits to emergency departments continue to grow across the country, and local growth and demand for services has put quite a bit of pressure on all of our emergency rooms,” said J. Adrian Tyndall, M.D., M.P.H., chair of the UF College of Medicine’s department of emergency medicine and chief of emergency services for UF Health. “This is the second step — the first being Springhill — in our goal of better distributing access to emergency care.”
The UF Health Emergency Center – Kanapaha will be open 24/7 and will be staffed by physicians trained and board-certified in emergency medicine. The E.R. is also fully equipped to provide the same level of emergency care as a hospital-based E.R. If patients need further care or admission to the hospital, such as in the case of trauma or stroke, the transition of care to the UF Health Shands E.R. on the main hospital campus will be seamless.
“We have learned from our UF Health Shands Emergency Center – Springhill that it is complementary to our main emergency room,” said David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., UF senior vice president for health affairs and president of UF Health. “Patients with acute medical problems in the Southwest region of Gainesville and points west now have a convenient place to go for full-service emergency care.”
Demand for these emergency centers is clear: Over the last five years, emergency room visits have grown at UF Health Shands facilities by more than 50 percent, Tyndall said.
The 10,881-square-foot E.R. is a designated 911 ambulance-receiving facility. It contains 14 exam spaces and two rooms dedicated to rapid triaging and patient examination. The facility is equipped with X-ray and CT scanning as well as ultrasonography and onsite laboratory services.
Matthew Shannon, M.D., currently a full-time physician at Kanapaha, will become the medical director of the Kanapaha facility. Wendy Swan, R.N., SANE-A, will be the nurse manager at the Springhill and Kanapaha facilities.
