Ascension St. Vincent’s stand-alone emergency room treated its first patient April 28, just before its scheduled 9 a.m. ribbon-cutting. A parent and child used the new 24/7 facility.
The emergency room is at 12525 Beach Blvd. at northwest Kernan and Beach boulevards. It is affiliated with Ascension St. Vincent’s Southside Hospital at 4201 Belfort Road. If an ER patient needs a higher level of care, an ambulance can take the person from the ER to the hospital.
The emergency room is 10,000 square feet and provides triage, critical care, nine treatment spaces and on-site lab services, as well as CT and X-ray technology, according to Ascension St. Vincent’s. The facility has a staff of 40.
Birmingham, Alabama-based Hoar Construction LLC was the contractor. Construction permits, including for signage, totaled a project cost of almost $13.6 million.
The population of residents living around the ER is expected to increase 5.9% over the next five years, and health data show the area has some of Florida’s highest rates of death from heart attack or stroke, said Cory Darling, president and CEO of Ascension St. Vincent’s Southside Hospital. Those statistics drove the hospital’s decision to build the ER, Darling said.
He said he expects the ER to serve 16,000 patients annually.
“This is a pocket of the Jacksonville area that’s truly growing. It’s the rapid growth we’re seeing in the numbers. This is the point to really bring that access to those in high-growth communities and bring our mission and bring our clinical standards here to serve this area that’s in need of emergency care,” Darling said.
The facility is expected to reduce the number of emergency room patients seen at the hospital, Darling said.
“That’s also a great part of this. It is a sort of unintended operational impact,” he said.
Mayor Donna Deegan spoke at the ribbon-cutting, saying 1 in 5 people are expected to need emergency care this year.
“Each year 17,000 new people move to Jacksonville, placing additional stress on infrastructure that includes healthcare availability,” Deegan said.
“More options like this mean shorter wait times, less crowding and better health outcomes. That’s been a major goal of this administration is to bring better health outcomes to Jacksonville.”