When my baby son's toe turned an unexplained purple nine years ago, I drove across town to Rodeo Road for urgent care, one of three options in Santa Fe at the time. Today, our choices for immediate care have doubled with urgent care centers located in all corners of the city.
Over the last decade, getting medical care has increasingly meant waiting. And as waits for ER visits and doctor appointments grew longer, more people have turned to urgent care as a convenient alternative. Urgent care centers—which offer extended hours and basic primary-care services—began to develop in the 1970s as a way to meet patients' needs, after-hours and quickly.
"We do want to drive people to urgent care centers—they are faster, more cost-efficient and people get the quality care they need," says Arturo Delgado, director of marketing and communications at Christus St. Vincent, which operates two urgent care centers on the Eastside and Southside.
That need continues to rise, especially in New Mexico, a state with one of the fastest-growing populations of older adults and one that expanded Medicaid as a way to insure thousands more adults. Although we could see the end of the Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare), it has already made an impact here, increasing demand for services.
"The reality is the healthcare sector is the largest sector in New Mexico and in the country," says Kelly O'Donnell, a local economist and public finance expert. "There are specific forces at play—Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act, in particular—[that have] been meaningful in New Mexico because so many people qualify for health insurance for the first time. Plus the population is aging, and as people get older, they need more healthcare, and often more costly healthcare."
Shots, physicals and primary care
Urgent care centers used to focus solely on minor injuries and illnesses when your regular doctor wasn't available. Now many are going beyond the basics—offering vaccinations and sports physicals, connecting more to primary and specialty care, providing basic laboratory and x-ray services and focusing on prevention.
"Overall there's growth in the healthcare industry in the outpatient clinical-type setting, and there's a bigger push toward preventive healthcare. You want people to get the care they need," Delgado says.
If you'd like to link your urgent care visit with your doctor, three urgent care centers also operate as primary-care clinics. Aspen Medical Center opened in 2013 with a focus on connecting urgent care patients into a primary-care home. You can visit for an emergency need and then establish care with a doctor at the clinic on Zafarano Road.
Coordinating care with integrated medical records
If you have a doctor or provider within the expansive Christus St. Vincent system, two urgent care clinics can access your medical records to coordinate your care: DeVargas Health Center & Urgent Care in the DeVargas Center and the Entrada Contenta Health Center & Urgent Care near the Southside Walmart. At Entrada, you can get linked to a doctor at the same clinic for follow-up care.
Presbyterian's PMG Urgent Care, which opened in 2015 on St. Michael's Drive, can also connect you to primary-care physicians and refer you to a specialist, like cardiology, neurology or endocrinology, located within the same building.
"We have one integrated medical record that has information about patients that is shared across the system," says Helen Brooks, Santa Fe-area administrator for Presbyterian Healthcare Services. "It's also a tool to look at population health. We can identify populations of diabetic patients and proactively manage their care. That's a big change from episodic to total care."
Serious treatment away from home
Some urgent care centers exist mainly to keep people out of the emergency room. UltiMED cares for a mix of locals and tourists in Santa Fe's only downtown clinic. "More people are traveling now with medical problems than ever before," says Lesa D Fraker, medical director of UltiMED and a board-certified emergency medicine physician.
Troy Watson, owner of Railyard Urgent Care, says his clinic can treat 90 percent of the medical problems seen in an ER, including suturing major wounds, conducting biopsies, providing pulmonary-function tests and treating dislocated joints.
Urgent care centers offering more services reflect the overall shift toward outpatient care in the healthcare industry. Gone are the days when long hospital stays were typical. Inpatient care has dropped while outpatient care, fueled by newer technologies and a need for convenience, has flourished. Presbyterian began construction in Santa Fe this past October on a new medical center that would capitalize on the need for outpatient services like general, orthopedic and podiatry surgery.
"Procedures that used to require large incisions and long recover times can be done with new techniques and no hospital stay—it's a huge development within the healthcare industry," says Brooks.
Santa Fe's six urgent care centers offer similar services with a couple of unique features, now spread across the city:
Aspen Medical Center
Open latest, until 9 pm every day
3450 Zafarano Drive, Ste. C, 466-5885
aspenmedicalcenter.com
DeVargas Health Center & Urgent Care
Get care Monday through Saturday at the north-side facility.
DeVargas Center, 510 N Guadalupe St., Ste. C, 913-4664
stvin.org/devargas-health-center-urgent-care
Entrada Contenta Health Center & Urgent Care
Christus provides the clinic furthest south in the city limits.
5501 Herrera Drive, 913-4180
stvin.org/entrada-contenta-health-center-urgent-care
Presbyterian Urgent Care
Centrally located and run by the outfit also building a new hospital near I-25.
454 St. Michael's Drive, Ste. 200, 473-0390
phs.org/locations/Pages/urgent-care.aspx
Railyard Urgent Care
Santa Fe Reporter readers voted them the best in town in 2016's Best of Santa Fe readers' poll.
831 S St. Francis Drive, 501-7791
railyardurgentcare.com
UltiMED
The oldest urgent care clinic in Santa Fe; it opened in 2003.
707 Paseo de Peralta, 989-8707
ultimed.com
