Prima Health Care expansion schedule for Dec. completion

By Kevin Howell, Salem News staff writer

July 1, 2008

COLUMBIANA — Prima Health Care will soon be providing expanded services in Columbiana, with construction of its new facility just off of state Route 7 scheduled for completion in December.

Construction has begun on the new 20,000-square-feet facility, which will host eight family practice and internal medicine physicians, according to Prima founder Dr. Steve DeMaiolo.

"The new facility secures for Columbiana and the surrounding area the presence of a large number of primary care physicians," he said. "A lot of areas are having problems bringing in and keeping good physicians, so we are lucky to have this opportunity."

Occupying 14,000 square feet of the building, versus 6,000 at its current Columbiana location, Prima will still provide the same services that are available at its other locations - express care/walk-in services, and in-office pharmacy and complete on-site testing, including X-ray, CT scan, dexascan and ultrasound. The building will also house Prima's administrative offices, DeMaiolo said.

With the new facility, the most significant difference customers can expect is greater access to physicians, according to DeMaiolo.

"There is a large demand from the community for access to medical service," he said. "The addition of doctors will allow for an expansion of service, especially our open access model."

Meeting the immediate needs of patients, the open access model provides care for walk-in and express appointments and will add 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays to its existing 1 to 4 p.m. weekday schedule, DeMaiolo said.

Considering expansion for the past 10 years, DeMaiolo said the project became feasible over the past couple years due to a growing interest from area physicians wanting to join the health care group.

As a branch of the Prima Health Care group, the Columbiana office has proven to be in high demand, DeMaiolo said.

"Columbiana is a big driver of new patients," he said. "So we have made the decision to make a commitment to the community and set-up a practice."

The general contractor for the project is the Murphy Contracting Company and the architect is Thomas Keller.

In addition to the current facility in Columbiana, Prima has offices in Boardman, Austintown and Salem, with a total of 20 physicians in the group.

Kevin Howell can be reached at khowell@salemnews.net