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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Matt Frederick, firefighter and EMT, left, and Jay Wheeler, a fire medic, with the Trussville Fire and Rescue Service tour the major trauma room at the Grandview Medical Center freestanding emergency department following a ribbon cutting ceremony in April 2023. Grandview plans to open a second freestanding emergency department at 2137 Valleydale Road near Interstate 65.
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Grandview Medical Center has been serving people from its spot along U.S. 280 since 2015, and soon the hospital’s service reach will expand with a new freestanding emergency department on Valleydale Road.
The new facility is planned at 2137 Valleydale Road near Interstate 65 and across from the Southlake medical complex and Lowe’s Home Improvement Store.
Alan Paquette, chairman of the Hoover Health Care Authority, said it will help fill a void.
“The whole corridor at Valleydale, whether it’s south Jefferson or north Shelby, is really kind of lacking for medical treatment centers,” Paquette said.
The facility will be Grandview’s second freestanding emergency department — the hospital opened one in Trussville in May 2023. That FED is open 24 hours a day and is equipped to treat patients with illnesses and injuries that require a higher level of care than patients find at urgent care facilities.
It is staffed by board-certified emergency physicians, registered nurses and other patient care providers. The new facility in Hoover will offer similar services.
“Providing convenient access points to health care continues to be a priority for us,” Grandview said in a prepared statement.
This “growing area” of the community already uses Grandview Medical Center “extensively” for emergency needs, according to Grandview’s statement. Because of this, “both the administrative law judge and the CON [Certificate of Need] board agreed with our positions and found there is a need for this project at this location.”
The city of Hoover and area fire and rescue departments also supported the project.
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“Over the past year, as we have worked our way through the regulatory process, there have been no real changes in the development of the project,” Grandview said. “We believe that an access point in this location would be complementary of the medical and residential development that will emerge at the Riverwalk Village over the coming years.”
Paquette said he likes the idea of the Grandview freestanding emergency department being situated at its proposed location for the same reasons.
“I like it in combination with the ambulatory surgery center we’re trying to do at Riverwalk,” he said.
Riverwalk, a 90-acre mixed-use development located near Riverchase Parkway, will include a variety of health and wellness facilities if the project is approved by the state’s Certificate of Need Review Board.
Paquette said they’re hoping to get the Riverwalk ambulatory surgery center before the CON board in mid-September. “There is good stuff happening there,” he said.
The Hoover Health Care Authority has “been supporters of the Grandview freestanding emergency department from the beginning,” Paquette said. “We even had the mayor and the City Council president testify on their behalf before the CON board, so we think it’s a great project.”
One of Hoover’s other freestanding emergency departments has seen patient traffic at such a large scale that Paquette said it underscores the need for more emergency care in the area.
The UAB Medical West freestanding emergency department at 5300 Medford Drive is “the busiest freestanding ER in the state of Alabama,” he said. “More patients go through there than any of the others in the state.”
Monty Gooch, director of emergency services at UAB Medical West, said they have seen almost 300,000 new patients since opening in 2015.
“The first full year we were open was 2016, and we saw 21,195 patients — 58 per day,” Gooch said. “We’ve grown to where in 2023 we saw 41,386 patients — 113 per day.”
He said he believes the UAB Medical West freestanding emergency department’s growth “is a testament to our excellent provider group of physicians and advanced practice practitioners and the great staff we have here in all areas, which has resulted in our patients continuing to choose us when the need arises.”
Hoover’s other freestanding emergency department is owned and run by Brookwood Baptist Medical Center, located at the intersection of U.S. 280 and Alabama 119 (7131 Cahaba Valley Road). It also opened in 2015.
