— Rural health clinics, suburban urgent care centers and satellite clinics with rotating specialists have helped bring quality health care close to home.

The additional entry points have the overall goal of increasing access to health care while reducing wait times and congestion at larger facilities, including emergency rooms.

“One of the problems we have in the United States and in Pennsylvania is access to care,” said Dr. Nick Colovos, regional medical director for MedExpress Urgent Care.

“That is one of the greatest things we are able to bring to a community is access to care by giving patients an option.”

MedExpress center opened in August at 1221 Scalp Ave., in the Richland Plaza. It bills itself as a full-service, walk-in health care clinic offering medical treatment to all ages for illness and injury. “MedExpress always has a physician on site,” Colovos said.

Too often, a patient’s first contact with a physician is in the hospital emergency room, where the patient has come for help with an injury or illness that may not be a true emergency, he said.

‘An urgent-care center’

Colovos stressed MedExpress is not trying to replace primary care doctors.

In fact, he said the company tries to work with local doctors and encourages patients to follow up with those physicians.

“As an urgent care center, we don’t do primary care,” he said.

And the emergency rooms are getting overwhelmed, Conemaugh Health System leaders agreed.

The situation helped prompt the resurrection of Conemaugh’s MedWELL urgent care centers at         1450 Scalp Ave. in Richland Township in 2008 and at 236 Jamesway Road outside Ebensburg last year.

“We opened MedWELL to fill a need of the population for urgent care in a setting that is more accessible,” Conemaugh Chief Medical Officer David J. Carlson said.

“With more than 70,000 patients a year in the emergency department, you get to that critical mass and need to distribute those access points.”

“Emergency room treatment is more expensive,” said Dr. William Carney, chief medical officer for Conemaugh Physicians Group.

Carney said he has seen studies estimating that less than 5 percent of emergency department visits are “true emergencies.”

“It’s a terrible trend,” Carney said.

“The MedWELLs help a little bit with that. It could help control the cost of medicine.”

Combining MedWELL centers with other Conemaugh operations in one building makes it more cost-effective, Memorial Medical Center President Steven E. Tucker said.

The Scalp Avenue location in a former school building includes Laurel Highlands Advanced Imaging Center and John Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute, with its vast array of services including neurology, neurosurgery and pain management.

The institute hosts specialty clinics for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorder, Parkinson’s disease, post-polio syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Ebensburg’s MedWELL building also houses Conemaugh’s Ebensburg Care Center, with physicians’ offices and outpatient services like X-rays, blood draw and mammograms. There are additional outpatient centers with various services in Geistown, Nanty Glo, Northern Cambria, Portage, Westmont and East Taylor Township.

“It’s part of the continuum of care,” said John Moryken, Conemaugh vice president for business development and government affairs.

Moryken points to the health system’s 40 primary care offices, palliative care program, Cambria Care Center clinic, home health program, medical equipment business and wound clinics to illustrate the system’s mission of providing all aspects of health care and prevention services.

And the services are close to home, Carlson said, noting the outpatient centers’ convenient locations.

“Our goal is to get some of the outpatient services closer to the patients who need them,” Carlson said.

The same goal will bring more Somerset Hospital services to Berlin later this year, hospital President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Farrell said.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for this month for a new physician office building with outpatient therapy programs and additional services.

“We envision our current family practice and pediatrician offices,” Farrell said. “Perhaps we will rotate some additional specialists.”

The $1.2 million, 5,300-square-foot facility is scheduled to open late this year.

Besides bringing new health services, the center will provide an economic benefit for the borough and school district, Farrell said.

“It will be on the tax rolls,” he said. “Every property that Somerset Hospital or an affiliate of Somerset Hospital owns we maintain on the tax rolls, with the exception of the hospital proper. It has always been to the advantage of the community.”

Windber provides care for western Bedford County residents at its Alum Bank Community Health Center near Pleasantville.

“Alum Bank is designated by Medicare as a medically under-served area,” Winder Chief Operating Officer Holly Rigby said.

“It makes it eligible for rural health support.”

While the Alum Bank center’s primary mission is to bring health-care services to the rural region, the hospital has additional incentives, Rigby said.

Physicians who agree to work in under-served areas get help with student loans.

“That helps us with recruiting as well,” Rigby said.

It is not just rural areas that can benefit from additional medical services. Specialized pediatric care has not been available in many areas through local providers.

That’s why Dr. Andrew Garbarino and his Pediatric Care Specialists practice continue to expand into new areas.

Along with its primary facility at 1322 Eisenhower Blvd. in Richland Township, the practice has offices at 110 Main St., Johns­town; 3781 Admiral Peary Highway, Ebensburg; and    507 Georgian Place, Somerset. Its Behavior Health Center opened last year at 320 Eisenhower Blvd. in Richland.

His patients appreciate the convenience, Garbarino said.

“I started plans for the Somerset office the last time gas was around $4 a gallon,” Garbarino said. “For patients driving to Johnstown, it was like an additional co-pay.”

The response has been strong, he said.

‘Right now, the Somerset office has gotten busier and is filling up one and a half (practitioners’) schedules,” he said.

“We need more manpower.”

Pediatric Care Specialists’ website lists a dozen practitioners, including six doctors, two nurse practitioners and two physician assistants, all with pediatric training.

“Ebensburg is so busy we have to do a split shift and operate from 7:30 a.m. to    7:30 p.m. because of the size of the facility,” Garbarino said.

“We are looking at a brand new office by Jan. 1 in Ebensburg.”

Even with all the expansion, Garbarino realizes his staff can’t provide all the community needs. So he has begun working with UPMC through Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital to bring in visiting pediatric specialists on a rotating basis.

Pediatric cardiology, neurology, gastrointestinal, endocrinology, nephrology, surgery, weight management, diabetes, pulmonology and ear, nose and throat clinics are held on a regular schedule.

“They don’t have to drive the whole way to Pittsburgh to see a pediatric specialist,” Garbarino said.

The local economy and local hospitals benefit from the arrangement, he noted.

Although Memorial Medical Center is his hospital-connection, patients from his Somerset office are referred to Somerset Hospital for lab work or X-rays.

Those patients’ families often combine the trip with lunch in Somerset restaurants and shopping, he said.

It’s the same situation in Johnstown with the Children’s Hospital specialists.

All of their lab work and     X-rays are done locally.