Emergency room care now a whole lot closer

Prince William County residents will have access to 24-hour emergency care within the Lake Ridge community due to the planned opening today, March 7, of the new Sentara Lake Ridge at 12825 Minnieville Road.

“This will be the first 24-hour facility on the eastern side of the county besides Potomac Hospital itself,” said Charlene Wilkins, community relations and publications specialist for Sentara Potomac Hospital, about a week before the new facility’s scheduled opening.

“It’s nice to know that when it’s the middle of the night and your kid’s eardrum pops, you have a full-service facility nearby,” Wilkins said, noting that “there is a big difference between an ER and [a walk-in clinic.]

In addition to emergency services, Sentara Lake Ridge will provide CT imaging services, digital mammography, bone density scanning, ultra-sound and x-ray, both for emergencies and during the day by appointment. Ambulances will not bring patients to Sentara Lake Ridge, but they may transport patients who require inpatient care to Sentara Potomac, Wilkins said.

“ERs serve everybody who comes through,” said Wilkins, “but we do encourage people to get a primary physician who can organize their care.”

The Lake Ridge location will help meet the needs of the area’s growing population and provide relief for the Irene V. Hylton Emergency Care Center at Potomac Sentara Hospital. In a news release, Megan Perry, president of Sentara Potomac said, “the Emergency Department at Sentara Potomac Hospital was designed 15 years ago to serve 40,000 patients and now serves close to 60,000. We want to make sure that we are meeting the needs of the community and we believe that Sentara Lake Ridge will help us achieve that goal.”

Lake Ridge was selected as a convenient location for area residents and its growing population. According Sentara’s figures, the population within a five-mile radius of the site was 188,850 earlier in the planning process and is expected to grow to 206,772 by 2014.

Sentara Lake Ridge will be staffed by board-certified emergency physicians of BestPractices, who provide services at Sentara Potomac’s Irene V. Hylton Emergency Care Center. The Lake Ridge facility will be under the direction of Mary Ann McLaurin, M.D. McLaurin began working at the Hylton Center in 1989 and became the vice chair in 2000.

The advanced imaging services will be under the medical direction of the board-certified physicians of Potomac Radiology and Imaging Associates, who also provide services at Potomac.

Sentara Lake Ridge will also be home to the Lake Ridge Ambulatory Surgery Center expected to open this summer. According to Wilkins, the surgery facility rivals those at the main hospital and the facility, in general, is well-designed. “It’s spread out and provides good patient flow,” she said. “It has a full-sized ER, a centralized nursing station, and 14 patient rooms. The rooms have doors, not curtains,” she said. “It’s what people expect now.”

Also located within the building, and scheduled to open in April or May of this year, will be Mount Vernon Internal Medicine, the Greater Metropolitan Orthopaedics Institute and Greater Metropolitan Physical Therapy.

Potomac Hospital became part of the Sentara not-for-profit health system in December of 2009, Wilkins said. In a not-for-profit system, all revenue is put back into the system, she said. According to the Sentara website (http://www.Sentara.com), the Sentara system began in 1888 as the Retreat for the Sick in Norfolk, Virginia. Currently it maintains more than 100 sites in Virginia and Northern North Carolina, including 10 acute care hospitals.

Sentara Lake Ridge is located at 12825 Minnieville Road, Lake Ridge, on the corner of Minnieville and Summit School roads. The phone number is 703- 221-2500.