Urgent news: New health hub opens on Eighth St.

Source: The Villager

June 9, 2016

Even though hospitals are closing and downsizing left and right, the central Village area just got healthier. On May 20, Northwell Health-GoHealth opened an urgent-care center at 41 E. Eighth St.

The new health hub’s services include treatment for cold, flu and fever; asthma, allergies and emphysema; minor skin lacerations, cuts and burns; urinary tract infections; and sports injuries, sprains and strains; plus X-rays for joints and bone injuries; and lab services for blood tests, urinalysis and cultures.

“Many New York residents have already come to trust Northwell Health-GoHealth for their urgent-care needs and we are very pleased to open new centers in Manhattan that will provide even greater access to our effortless experience and culture of care,” said Todd Latz, C.E.O. of GoHealth Urgent Care.

“We look forward to serving the Greenwich Village community with a contemporary, state-of-the-art urgent-care center that puts patients first. From easy online check-ins and walk-in availability to highly skilled, caring providers, Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care is here to help people feel better and stay healthy.”

Spanning from Long Island and Queens to Westchester, Staten Island and Manhattan, the Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care network included 23 centers by the end of last month, with plans to open 15 more by the end of this year. The centers combine GoHealth Urgent Care’s award-winning facility design with Northwell Health’s top-quality healthcare services.

All of Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care’s centers operate seven days a week, with extended evening hours, and welcome walk-in patients, with the opportunity to “save your spot” by checking in online.

Each center features X-ray equipment and a lab, combined with an integrated electronic medical record system that can be accessed by caregivers across Northwell Health.

For more information, visit www.gohealthuc.com/northwell.

Scrapbook: New Urgent Care Centers

Source: Our Town Downtown

June 3, 2016

Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care opened two new centers, in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side. The company has opened 22 centers since 2014 across New York and has plans to open 15 more by the end of 2016. To celebrate the arrival of the most recent centers, Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care hosted a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Greenwich Village center at 41 E. 8th St. Pictured is Todd Latz, CEO and founder of GoHealth.

Radon: What is it and what are the risks?

Source: KOIN

By Cole Miller

June 3, 2016

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland Public Schools announced Wednesday night that high levels of radon were found in 6 schools. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that seeps up from the ground and can affect indoor air quality. Radon is everywhere and depending on where you live, you could be at a higher risk for exposure. Portland State geologist Dr. Scott Burns says the concern is legitimate. “We do not want to have our kids and the staff at the schools working in environments that the values are high,” Burns said. The gas is invisible and odorless — the only way to know it’s there is to test for it. “So we’re all exposed to it all the time,” said Narda Sherman, a physician’s assistant at Legacy GoHealth. “The question is to how much were exposed.” North Portland tends to have higher levels of radon due to the geological makeup there. Sherman says radon is the second most common cause of lung cancer after smoking. “We do know that there’s an association to breathing in radon and developing lung cancer,” Sherman said. Burns says everyone should test their house. “It’s so cheap,” he said. “Maybe every 5 years it would be good to go in and retest.” Plans are in the works now for Portland schools to bring radon levels down, but Sherman wants parents to keep in mind kids don’t spend all their time at school. “I think at this point, we will serve our children better by having our own home tested where they spend most of their time than being too concerned by radon exposure in the schools,” Sherman said.

Joint Ventures Between Health Systems and Urgent Care: Achieving the Best of Both Worlds

Source: The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine 

By JUCM

June 2, 2016

Urgent message: As hospitals and health systems develop and grow +their urgent care footprints, many leverage the expertise and experience of outside partners. Five common affiliation models fit differing strategic objectives and distinct market conditions.

As the number of urgent care centers increases across the United States, so too do the variety of urgent care center models and the ways in which urgent care centers seek to meet the growing demand for urgent care. Gone are the days when simply being more convenient and cheaper than the emergency department (ED) was enough to ensure success. Private equity investment, strategic health-system growth and development, payor vertical integration, and mergers and acquisitions are all fueling growth and evolution of the care-delivery model and increasing consolidation in what is still a highly fragmented market.

6 of the Most Common Childhood Outbreaks

Source: Health Moms Magazine

By Dr. Jill Swartz

June 1, 2016

When we send our kids to day care, preschool, or elementary school, it sometimes feels like we’re exposing them to a world of germs and common schoolyard sicknesses. Children of these ages are more susceptible to outbreaks due to the close contact they have with their classmates. To help parents keep their kids healthy, here is a rundown of the most common outbreaks among children, and how treat them:

6 of the Most Common Childhood Outbreaks

1. Common Cold: results in nasal congestion, sore throat, and cough. Kids are most contagious for the first two to three days, however can infect others from a week prior to symptoms until symptoms are cleared. This is why it is important to keep them home from school allowing them to rest, eat healthy and take over the counter medicine for a quick recovery. Sending a child to school with a cold will make them more susceptible to secondary infections like strep throat or pneumonia.

2. Strep Pharyngitis: causes sore throat and fever. Sore throats are a leading cause of pediatric ambulatory care visits. Swift treatment is particularly important for children two years or older, as leaving a sore throat untreated could lead to rheumatic fever. After 24 hours on antibiotics such as Amoxicillin, strep is no longer contagious.

3. Pink Eye: marked by redness, itching, inflammation, yellow or white discharge and inflammation of the eyelids. Pink eye is spread by a child touching their own eye and then touching the eye of another child, or by touching the infection in one’s own nose/sinus. Usually contagious until the tearing, discharge and matting of the eyes dissipates. This uncomfortable condition can be treated by taking a warm cloth to the eye several times a day and will need an antibiotic if your doctor deems necessary, however most cases of conjunctivitis are viral and don’t require an antibiotic.

4. Head Lice: results in a tickling feeling, itching, and sores on the head due to tiny parasites in human hair. Avoid by not sharing combs, hats, hair clips, and making sure mats aren’t too close during naptime at your child’s school or day care. Treat lice with a prescription or over the counter hair shampoo, make sure to disinfect brushes by soaking them in hot water, and clean all items that your child has been in contact with during the 48 hours before treatment.

5. Chickenpox: caused by a virus and results in an itchy rash with fluid-filled blisters that eventually scab over. Children are no longer contagious after all lesions have scabbed over. The virus spreads easily from kids with chickenpox to others who have never had the disease or those who haven’t been vaccinated. Use over the counter topical medications for the itch, such as calamine lotion and wear cool clothing. Try to prevent your child from scratching or picking at scabs.

6. Stomach virus: results in abdominal cramping, fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The stomach virus spreads when a child who is ill doesn’t wash their hands well after wiping themselves after going to the bathroom, or if they have contact with their own vomit and the germs come in contact with communal surfaces, or if these same germs get into shared food. The virus can be present for weeks; so keep kids home from school, hydrate with water and Pedialyte and avoid Gatorade or drinks with a lot of sugar. When your child is able to tolerate solid foods, use the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. If your child appears dehydrated or lethargic, isn’t eating/drinking or urination is limited, go to the emergency room immediately.

Being well informed and following these treatment suggestions may help your children recover quickly, and get right back to running around the playground!

By Dr. Jill Swartz for the Healthy Moms Magazine

Dr. Jill Swartz is a physician at GoHealth Urgent Care in New York. Dr. Swartz received her Bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis MO and then attended Tufts School of Medicine in Boston where she completed her residency at Tufts Family Medicine. Dr. Swartz has experience in urgent care, primary care, and student health and she loves working at GoHealth Urgent Care due to the diversity of patients and issues seen in an urgent care setting. Like GoHealth Urgent Care on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GoHealthUrgentCare.

Confluence of Executives

Source: WestView News

Photo by Maggie Berkvist

June 1, 2016

CONFLUENCE OF EXECUTIVES: Newly opened, the twenty-foot-wide, storefront urgent care center at 8th Street near 5th Avenue is an odd consortium between Northwell Health and GoHealth Urgent Care. The new doc-in-a-box facility will offer a lower-cost alternative to Northwell Health’s emergency room, which DNA Info reports, quoting Community Board 2 Social Services committee chair Sasha Greene, “is charging enormous amounts of money for some simple little procedures.” Photo by Maggie Berkvist.

Joint Ventures Between Health Systems and Urgent Care: Achieving the Best of Both Worlds

Source: The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

By Todd Latz, JD

June 1, 2016

Urgent message: As hospitals and health systems develop and grow +their urgent care footprints, many leverage the expertise and experience of outside partners. Five common affiliation models fit differing strategic objectives and distinct market conditions.

As the number of urgent care centers increases across the United States, so too do the variety of urgent care center models and the ways in which urgent care centers seek to meet the growing demand for urgent care. Gone are the days when simply being more convenient and cheaper than the emergency department (ED) was enough to ensure success. Private equity investment, strategic health-system growth and development, payor vertical integration, and mergers and acquisitions are all fueling growth and evolution of the care-delivery model and increasing consolidation in what is still a highly fragmented market.

Read more at http://www.jucm.com/joint-ventures-health-systems-urgent-care-achieving-best-worlds/

Legacy-Gohealth Urgent Care to open in Parkway Village at Sherwood

Source: Sherwood Gazette

by Gazette staff

May 27, 2016

Legacy-GoHealth Urgent Care has signed a lease for 2,572 square feet at Gramor Development’s Parkway Village at Sherwood. This represents the 13th Legacy-GoHealth location in the Portland/Southwest Washington area. 

Legacy-GoHealth’s state of the art urgent care centers are built with a clean, contemporary designs and engineered for patient comfort and privacy. 

Go-Health, based out of Atlanta, Georgia, has partnered locally with Legacy Health Systems. 

“We’re happy to be opening the Legacy-GoHealth Urgent Care at Parkway Village at Sherwood,” said Rudy Yadao, the company’s director of development and construction. “The surrounding Sherwood area is expanding rapidly. It is also very family-oriented with a large residential population.  This was a good match for Legacy-GoHealth.” 

The urgent care center plans to open in August.

A relatively new player in the quick-care game continues to nurture new facilities.

Source : The Portland Business Journal

By Andy Giegerich

May 26, 2016

Legacy Health, working with GoHealth Urgent Care, said this week will hold grand openings for new spots in Lake Oswego and the Pearl District. The locales, both of which opened May 20, are the fourth and fifth urgent care centers opened by Legacy GoHealth in 2016.

Read more at : http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/health-care-inc/2016/05/urgent-care-centers-continue-to-sprout-for-legacy.html

A New Standard In Neighborhood Urgent Care From Northwell Health-GoHealth

Source: New York Family

By Mia Weber

May 26, 2016

For many people, having to visit an urgent care facility means that your day has most likely been disrupted–you’ve suffered a health set-back and now you’re going to track down a facility that may or may not be nearby, and then have to potentially wait (and wait, and wait) to be seen by a healthcare provider. This kind of scheduling snafu can be especially tough on families with young kids and working parents.

Enter Northwell Health-GoHealth’s urgent care facilities. Northwell Health-GoHealth is an innovative healthcare partnership between Northwell Health (formerly North Shore-LIJ), a longstanding pillar of NYC-area health and wellness service, and GoHealth Urgent Care, a company specializing in bringing a new kind of urgent care to a variety of communities by partnering with local healthcare networks (GoHealth also operates in Portland, OR, in partnership with Legacy Health, and has plans to open new facilities in the San Francisco Bay area in partnership with Dignity Health this June). The Northwell Health-GoHealth business is built on offering immediate healthcare, medical record continuity and seamless integration with Northwell Health, x-rays and labs on-site, top quality care, and acceptance of most major insurance providers.

Northwell Health-GoHealth cut the ribbon this past week on two new urgent care facilities–in Greenwich Village (41 East 8th Street) and on the Upper West Side (2628 Broadway)–to add to their growing number of patient-focused and forward-thinking urgent care facilities in the New York City area.

“We now have 23 locations in the greater New York area,” Todd Latz, GoHealth’s CEO and a dad-of-three, says just before cutting the ribbon on the 8th Street outpost. “[The New York] market will continue to grow…and we’ll get a lot bigger here in New York in the next year. That’s true in Manhattan, Staten Island, Long Island, Queens, and Westchester.”

What makes Northwell Health-GoHealth’s urgent care facilities special–and especially great for families–is that they truly prioritize the patient experience. Allowing patients to reserve a spot online in the center’s queue before they arrive, offering larger exam rooms with large monitors to display medical records, and giving patients ample time to ask questions and schedule follow up care with Northwell Health’s extensive care network are all way in which these new facilities work towards changing urgent care for the better.

“Everything about the business is focused on patient and family experience. From comfortable waiting rooms to large spacious exam rooms that can accommodate families… It’s all about experience. The restrooms, for example—it’s an overlooked thing sometimes—they’re large and every one of them has a changing table,” notes Adam Boll, Vice President of Northwell Ventures Operations. “We specialize in not only seeing adults but also in seeing children. All of our practitioners are trained in family care.”

Boll’s sentiment is echoed by Latz, who emphasized the convenience factor of Northwell Health-GoHealth’s online check-in and queuing system: “What we’ve tried to do is design something that allows you to live your life and not change what you would normally do but also take care of something that, in the past, was difficult to do,” he explains. “We think that really has set us apart. Nobody else in this market has that type of queuing where you put it back into the patient’s hands.”

Now that Northwell Health-GoHealth has opened up in Greenwich Village and on the UWS, it brings Manhattan’s total up to four (there’s also a Gramercy location and an Amsterdam location). To learn more, or to book an urgent care appointment, visit gohealthuc.com/nyc!