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Tuality Healthcare Statement on Forest Grove Urgent Care Transition

May 16, 2018

The Tuality Healthcare Board of Directors approved $3 million in funding to improve health care services in the Forest Grove community at their April 26 meeting. We are excited to announce the first step in this investment.

As we’ve had the opportunity to meet with community members and key leaders to imagine the future of health care services in Forest Grove, we have identified a need for an Urgent Care facility to serve Forest Grove and surrounding cities. In the evaluation of our current services, we have determined that our Emergency Department in Forest Grove is most often utilized as an Urgent Care, and that patients with true emergencies would be better served by the Emergency Department at Tuality Community Hospital on our Hillsboro campus where they have direct access to OHSU emergency physicians, specialists, surgical services, and can be admitted if necessary.

As a result, on July 1, 2018, we will transition our Forest Grove Emergency Department to an Urgent Care clinic. The new clinic will operate out of the existing Emergency Department location, and will be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. which reflects the current community need. The operating hours will continue to be evaluated to ensure access to care when the community needs it. There will be no gap in services as the Forest Grove Emergency Department is transitioned to an Urgent Care clinic. Our Forest Grove employees are highly valued and it is our intention to ensure that those who want to stay employed with Tuality Healthcare will have an opportunity to do so.

This new Urgent Care facility will allow us to serve our patients more effectively with shorter wait times and easier access, while still allowing patients in need of higher levels of care to be fast-tracked to our OHSU physicians at Tuality Community Hospital. The move to an Urgent Care structure also offers the additional benefit of more cost-effective care and improved insurance coverage for many patients.

Patients in need of infusion on weekdays will be served at Tuality’s enhanced infusion center at the Tuality 8th Avenue Medical Plaza on the Hillsboro campus. On Saturdays and Sundays, infusion services will be offered at Tuality Community Hospital. The other publicly available services provided at our Forest Grove location will continue to operate as normal, including laboratory services for outside physician lab draw orders and general X-ray for outside physician X-ray orders.

Tuality Healthcare remains committed to our community in Forest Grove and we are currently working to achieve our vision to develop a true healthcare district within our existing Forest Grove campus by the summer of 2019. This is just the first of several exciting new services which potentially include a retail pharmacy, physical therapy and sports rehabilitation, expanded primary care, and more.

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