OKEMOS, Mich. — After over a year and half of construction, Sparrow has opened the region's first free standing emergency medical department at 2446 Jolly Road in Okemos.
The new Sparrow emergency center is now one of the few of its kind in the state, most being in the Detroit region.
It provides the same services as a hospital, it just isn't attached to one.
"We have a 24/7 coverage with board certified emergency physicians, and we also have nurses that are specially trained in emergency medicine, staffing, the ER, it's pretty much ready for anything that comes in the door," said System Medical Director for Emergency Medicine Mike Yokell. "Any of our high acuity patients that are critically ill, will be stabilized here and then transported out to Lansing."
The hospital has services like CT scans, x-rays and ultrasounds along with a primary care center that will house physicians for every day appointments attached.
"It's exciting to be so close to internal medicine, colleagues and family medicine," Yokell said. "I think potentially having a doctor around to bounce ideas off of, but also to help arrange things like follow up and then if someone goes into the doctor's office, because they're not feeling well, and their doctor identifies it, they're actually pretty sick and need to be in a hospital, we're going to be able to just wheel them right into one of these rooms and take care of them right away."
The new emergency department provides a closer option for residents to the east of Sparrow's downtown campus in case of a medical emergency and will cut down driving time.
Sparrow officials also hope this will cut down wait times at their downtown location.
"This will be a different experience," Yokell said. "We're really hoping that local patients can use this as their emergency department and save them a trip to downtown."
Yokell said they are fully staffed at the Okemos free standing clinic with some of the staff transferring over from the Lansing location.
"With the nursing, we'll have a critical care transport team that is basically dedicated to helping move patients back and forth and those are all emergency nurses," Yokell said. "We also have backup nurses in Lansing, who can come over here if we have a surge of patients. So what we like to do is kind of think of things in a system way and then utilize different resources around the system to help cover."
Yokell said this is an exciting addition the the Okemos region and is happy to be part of it.
"This is a brand new building, designed from the ground up specifically for this purpose," Yokell said. "We had a great healthcare architecture firm literally planning out exactly where every single thing in this room is, and then, we've been able to bring a lot of, you know, high tech solutions and emergency medicine in. So it's really exciting, and I think it's going to fill a sizable gap in the community about where people can go to get their emergency medical care."
The medical center officially opens to the public on Tuesday and will be open 24 hours, seven days a week.
Want to see more local news? Visit the FOX47News Website.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere.
Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox.
Select from these options: Neighborhood News, Breaking News, Severe Weather, School Closings, Daily Headlines, and Daily Forecasts.
