Prima president has high hopes for new building in Columbiana

January 19, 2009

COLUMBIANA - Convenience and easier access to doctors is what the head of Prima Health Care is hoping to bring the area when the company's new building opens Monday morning.

The 23,000-square-foot building stands just north of the intersection of state Routes 7 and 14 and will replace the former Prima site in Columbiana, which was in the Dollar General plaza.

"Everybody's talking about changing health care. We're really doing it," president and CEO Dr. Steve DeMaiolo commented.

The building features 26 exam rooms, a physicians' office, a nurses' station, a triage area and a staff conference room, as well as areas and equipment for X-rays, ultrasound, CAT scans and bone density scanning.

But the real improvement comes from the staff of doctors that will be operating out of the facility.

A total of eight physicians will staff the building each day, DeMaiolo said, with five of them new to Prima.

Psychiatrist Dr. Chris Seman and podiatrist Dr. Lou Chiaro will be on staff when the center opens on Monday; family practitioner Dr. Jay Hertel will join the staff on Jan. 26 and family practitioners Dr. Mark Uchino and Dr. Thad Skinner will start there on Feb. 2.

"By adding all these physicians, it's going to increase our ability to have patient access," DeMaiolo said. "It's going to give patients more options and be able to be seen quicker."

Two other new features he is excited about are Saturday business hours and express care, which he described as a unique system in this area in which the center reserves certain hours for current or new patients to come in and see a doctor without an appointment. Express care hours, which start Feb. 7, will last from 1-4 p.m. every weekday and from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.

"I'm not sure what value it is to have a physician if you can't see him when you're sick," DeMaiolo explained the need for express care.

Patients will still able to see their own physician through conventional appointments, he added.

He is also renting space to two tenants in the medical field, and he said the tenants and Prima will work in conjunction with one another.

The first tenant, Sealy Medical, provides durable medical equipment that may be of use to patients.

The other tenant, Quest, provides an on-site blood work laboratory so patients will not even have to leave the building to have blood tests performed.

"What we're really trying to do here is to try to bring you the modern convenience that you can expect in the rest of your life," DeMaiolo explained.

There is still about 3,000 square feet of rental space left in the building and about six people have approached DeMaiolo about leasing it, but he is holding onto it and considering the needs of the community for the time being. The space will probably be filled by more specialists, but he said he is always willing to consider taking on more primary care physicians.

One other feature he is proud of is the paperless office with electronic patient records. Data in an electronic patient record is much easier to access and understand than is data in a three-inch-thick paper chart, he said, and doctors working with paper charts sometimes have patients undergo the same costly test multiple times because of clarity issues with a paper chart.

The opening of the building on Monday will be the culmination of 10 years of work for DeMaiolo. He began searching for a site for the facility about a decade ago, but the hardest part of the process was bringing local doctors together.

"The biggest challenge is always bringing physicians together because physicians are independent thinkers by nature," he said, but the doctors there have seen a need for change in the medical field and appreciate what Prima can offer them and their patients.

While he is confident the changes will be good for the patients, he said the community as a whole also will prosper from the new facility. In the past two months, Prima has taken on 15 new employees with quality wages and benefits.

"This is very positive for the community in a time of economic downturn ... Health care is going to provide a lot of opportunities for the communities that can see it," he noted.