Anderson's growth potential spurs new services

DRAWING BLOOD: Phlebotomist Lorena Alvarez draws a blood sample from Francille Honaker of Cottonwood, the first patient at Mercy’s new Patient Services Center in Anderson.

The south county's potential for growth, fueled in large part by proximity to the Interstate 5 corridor and implied promises of future home sales in The Vineyards of Anderson, has prompted Mercy Medical Center to establish a Patient Services Center at 2889 Ventura St. in Anderson.

The Anderson Patient Services Center is the fourth of what may eventually prove to be a half-dozen or more such centers spread throughout Mercy's client service area, said Robert Folden of Cottonwood, director of Mercy Medical Center's in-house clinical laboratory and the four blood drawing stations.

Each Patient Services Center is also paired with a companion service to more efficiently use the space and expertise of those working at the centers, Folden said.

"Fourteen months ago, we realized that Anderson certainly had the service base to support our expansion here," Folden said.

Mercy officials actively began looking for clinical office space prompted by calls for laboratory testing from several doctor's clinics in the area as well as from skilled nursing facilities that were losing support from national laboratories as those private companies drew back their mobile services from convalescent centers.

"Like any good business does, we started to look at the medical needs of the community and what services we already provide to the area. We already had a mobile life support system (two ambulances) based here, so we decided to pair the two services," Folden said.

In Redding, other Patient Services Centers are paired with a pre-op center in Suite A of the Doctor's Park at 2656 Edith Ave., adjacent to the hospital; with Mercy's Maternity Center at 1900 Railroad Ave.; as well as at the Mercy Family Health Clinic near Benton Air Park.

The Anderson center will be open from 6 a.m.-11 a.m. and from noon-3:30 p.m. to allow its customers - primarily women with young children -to make it in before dropping the children off at daycare or school as well as during a lunch hour or early afternoon hours prior to picking children up from school, Folden said.

"We expect to see 40 to 50 patients a day as our location becomes known. We are confident that we will eventually extend hours into the later afternoon and early evening," he said.

Like Mercy Medical Center, the Anderson Patient Services Center will accept all insured patients. There are also some service payment assistance payments available for people with limited means, Folden added.