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Open house offers peek at new Janesville clinic/ER

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Photo by Dan Lassiter

Workers install equipment in the General Radiology room at Mercy Clinic North in Janesville.

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Photo by Dan Lassiter

The exterior of the new Mercy Clinic North and Mercy Clinic North emergency room.

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Photo by Dan Lassiter

The ambulance bay at the new Mercy Clinic North emergency room.

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Photo by Dan Lassiter

One of the 15 exam rooms at the new Mercy Clinic North location in Janesville.

JANESVILLE — Construction crews are working around the clock to complete Mercy Health System’s newest clinic and satellite emergency room before a public open house Saturday.

The $6 million emergency room/urgent care at Mercy Clinic North, 3400 Deerfield Drive, will open Monday. The clinic will open a week later.

The 24,000-square-foot facility is split about evenly between a clinic on the right side and the emergency department/urgent care on the left, Mercy Vice President David Kurtz said.

Mercy says the project will provide more convenient services to the northeast side and allow for expansion of an emergency department that is severely constrained at the main campus near downtown.

The plum, light burgundy and ivory/cream color scheme, along with lots of natural light, wood and stone, create a comfortable environment to help put patients and families at ease, Kurtz said.

During a tour Wednesday, workers focused on everything from construction projects such as installing the outdoor glass overhang to hooking up machines such as X-ray equipment.

Wall art arrived while furniture sat wrapped in plastic in the waiting rooms. Computers were yet to be installed in exam rooms.

While administrators said the facility looked like it had a lot of work ahead, they said it would all be ready by Saturday.

Construction dust will be cleaned before the open house, and the facility again will be sanitized before patients arrive Monday, Kurtz said.

Crews from Magill Construction have been doing “whatever it takes” since construction started in September.

“We had a deadline set,” Kurtz said. “Once it was determined the need was here … those schedules were set. Mercy is known … for aggressive timeframes.”

Kurtz said the fact that the new St. Mary’s Janesville Hospital and Dean Clinic-Janesville East also are opening Monday just down Interstate 90/39 is “more or less a coincidence.”

Mercy’s new 24-hour emergency department/urgent care features:

-- A triage room with eight treatment rooms, two of which are larger for trauma cases.

-- A CT scanner, general radiology, ultrasound and a lab.

-- A helipad, which administrators said they don’t believe will be used much. Staff will be able to handle 95 percent of patients who arrive at the emergency room, Kurtz said. The remainder would be stabilize and transferred to Mercy’s main downtown campus or, in rare cases, flown to a larger facility, he said.

Double doors separate the ER from the clinic, where a nurses’ station is centered around 15 exam rooms, one procedure room and five physician offices.

These physicians will move into the clinic:

-- Dr. Edward Miller, gynecology, from Mercy Clinic West.

-- Dr. Jonathan Roe, pediatrics, from Mercy Clinic East.

-- Dr. Ronald Bowers, family medicine, from Mercy Clinic East.

A fourth physician will be added in summer along with a fifth at a later date. Construction on the office space for the fifth physician sits as a shell and will not be completed until needed.

A community education room with a separate entrance and restrooms also will be available for EMS training programs or community groups.