1,000 patients a day: New UW Health clinic hits the ground running | Health

UW Health’s new Eastpark Medical Center has seen an average of 1,000 patients a day in the month since it opened, an immediate wave of demand that reinforces the clinic’s goal of addressing a regional need, a top official says.

“We have been, not surprisingly, very busy,” Dr. Pete Newcomer, chief operating officer for UW Health, told the Cap Times. “We couldn’t be happier with the response from the public and our patients, and when we talk to our patients, we’re getting really good feedback.”

Many of the patients are new to UW Health in general, “as you would expect in a specialty clinic,” Newcomer said, noting that people may be seeking a certain kind of care and find their preferred services at the new center.

The clinic, at 4621 Eastpark Blvd. across the street from UW Health’s East Madison Hospital, began with a brainstorm. UW Health officials and doctors wanted to gather multiple specialties into one building to create a one-stop-shop for patients. 

“It’s all integrated,” Newcomer said. 

Previously, a patient might need to visit one center to get a scan, a different clinic to see a primary care doctor and a third facility to receive specialty care. 

“Now we brought it all together into one building where you can get your MRI or your CT scan, your general imaging, you can see the provider, the clinician, the physician, you can get therapy done there, and then, before you go home, you can grab lunch and pick up your meds at our drive-thru pharmacy,” Newcomer said. “So, you know, (we are) really just trying to put it all together.”

The clinic has 540 clinical staff and 300 nonclinical staff, with providers working in specialties ranging from cancer research and dermatology to clinical trials and women’s health. 

“The clinical trials, clinical research unit there is really front and center for UW Health and is really making people feel like they’re in the right place to get not just great care, but to be the place that is cutting edge,” Newcomer said. 

Technological advancements play a role in the facility as a whole, he said.

A technology assistance unit is dedicated entirely to helping patients navigate electronic charts and at-home health technology. The center also includes exam rooms with negative airflow to protect patients with vulnerable immune systems and a dedicated telehealth room in each unit to provide consultations with patients out of town.  

About 12% of the patient load since opening has been conducted via phone or video calls in one of the clinic’s telehealth units, according to UW Health. 

Right now patient care is primarily focused on adults, although plans are in the works to expand into pediatrics in the coming years. 

“We have a little bit of pediatrics happening in our allergy clinic,” Newcomer said. 

One area of specialty care Newcomer says he is excited to have expanded in the new clinic is women’s pelvic floor care. 

The Integrated Specialty Care for Women unit takes a multidisciplinary approach to women’s health — focusing on pelvic floor conditions like incontinence, prolapse, pelvic floor issues after labor and birth and sexual health — with doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, surgeons and physical therapists teaming up to establish care plans. 

“When we did planning for this (women’s specialty care unit), we planned for (patient) volumes out to 2028, just so we would have a building that would be ready in the future,” Newcomer said. “Right now, we’re already 20% above the number of visits we predicted for 2028, so it has been a huge improvement in availability for this needed care.” 

Dr. Sarah McAchran has been providing women’s health with a focus on urogynecology in Madison for 17 years. 

McAchran says the collaboration among more than 25 providers at the clinic allows patients to schedule multiple appointments on the same day and allows her to have easy access to her colleagues to ask questions, get input and make sure patients have a care plan that’s all-encompassing.

About one in every four women in the United States experiences pelvic floor disorders of some kind in their lifetime, according to the National Institutes of Health. 

“Because there are so many different organs in that space, there’s a lot of different surgeons and medical doctors who work in that space,” McAchran said, referring to women’s pelvic organs. “And what we are trying to do here is, instead of having a patient have to go to 17 different specialists all over and kind of coordinate their own care, hopefully by co-locating everybody who takes care of this population in one location, it allows us to coordinate their care better.”

She now helps lead the integrated women’s care clinic at Eastpark Medical Center — a medical collaboration she sees as a long time coming. 

The unit saw 850 patients in the first three weeks after opening across all of the women’s health specialties, McAchran said. 

McAchran used to see patients in collaboration with women’s health providers from gynecology and physical therapy in the urology unit at the UW Health facility on South Park Street two Wednesday afternoons each month. 

“That’s how we got going,” she said. “Now being able to be with each other full time in the same space all the time at Eastpark, and to see almost 1,000 patients in like three weeks, is wild.”