HCA Florida Largo Hospital is preparing to open a new freestanding emergency room facility in Clearwater.<\/p>\n
The 10,860-square-foot building, at 2209 State Road 580, is a $22.5 million investment in the community.<\/p>\n
It features 11 treatment rooms, said HCA Florida Largo Hospital chief operating officer Mari Elliott. These include areas for trauma and emergency medical services, women\u2019s care and isolation. Additionally, the facility has a laboratory, mental health room and advanced imaging technology such as X-ray machines.<\/p>\n
An open house event was held Dec. 13 to allow community members to tour the facility. The HCA team hopes to officially welcome patients next week, she explained. However, this is dependent on a final inspection, which is scheduled for Dec. 22.<\/p>\n
Once it opens, HCA Florida Countryside Emergency will provide 24\/7 care. Elliott added that patients will \u201chave easy access\u201d to the main Largo campus if they need to be transported.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe need for healthcare continues to increase year after year,\u201d she said. \u201cWe looked at how we can better serve more patients in our county and saw a gap in some points of access in the Dunedin-Clearwater area.\u201d<\/p>\n
HCA Florida Healthcare oversees over 650 affiliated hospitals, physician practices, freestanding emergency rooms and urgent care centers in the state. The new location is joined by another emergency room in Clearwater, at 2339 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd.<\/p>\n
Approximately 30 full-time positions, including nurses, physicians, radiology technicians and security officers, have been created for HCA Florida Countryside Emergency.<\/p>\n
While the property was initially acquired in 2023, the HCA team did not break ground on the project until February.<\/p>\n
\u201cEase of access to emergency medical services is particularly important to families with children and our elderly population,\u201d said Clearwater mayor Bruce Rector in a statement prepared for the Catalyst. \u201cWe are pleased to see this impressive new facility located in Clearwater.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artwork from Dunedin High School students will be displayed throughout the building.<\/p>\n
Elliott explained that she and her team brainstormed ideas for the facility\u2019s design and wanted to show something \u201cmore local\u201d than generic photographs. The pieces will be permanently exhibited.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the HCA Florida Largo Hospital team is exploring setting up a scholarship to support these students.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s important that patients are able to get their care,\u201d Elliott said, \u201cand they don\u2019t feel deterred because it\u2019s a long drive to get somewhere or a long wait time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HCA Florida Largo Hospital is preparing to open a new freestanding emergency room facility in Clearwater. The 10,860-square-foot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1339,30644,55783,596,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-109015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-clearwater","9":"tag-hca-florida-largo","10":"tag-hca-florida-largo-hospital","11":"tag-pinellas-county","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}