$26.7 million Sunnybrook Medical Plaza opens in Sioux City

The two-story, 86,000-square-foot glass and brick building at 5885 Sunnybrook Drive offers coordinated medical care in an open, modern space equipped with the latest technology.  

The building, budgeted at $26.7 million, is home to a new family medicine, internal medicine and urgent care clinic; St. Luke's Imaging and Breast Screening Center; a cardiology clinic with adjacent cardiac rehabilitation; an additional location for occupational medicine; and a site for physicians in various specialties, including pulmonary medicine and nephrology.

Chad Markham, St. Luke's vice president for clinic and network development, said additional partners are expected to move into offices on the first floor in the coming year. He said a third-party is also interested in a second-floor space.

"We essentially sized it beyond what we were planning on putting out there initially," he said of the structure. "Just about everybody we talked to that had done similar sorts of projects said, 'Don't under build it. Give it yourself some space for capacity.'"

Crews broke ground on the 17-acre project in June 2012.

The building is designed to allow physicians to work with a nurse, pharmacist and care coordinator at a single workstation, where they share information and devise a care plan as a team for each patient.

"The goal of health care is to make sure that patients that need to go from one service to the other don't fall through the cracks," Markham said. "We've got primary care right there and other specialty services."

The federal Affordable Care Act, which requires people to buy health insurance, also promotes preventative care and keeping people healthy. The demand for outpatient care is expect to grow by 30 percent in the next 10 years, as more people become insured and the population ages.

"Medicine is headed to be delivered to more and more people in the home and in the outpatient setting" Markham said. "It's a modern facility designed with that in mind."

FIRST FLOOR

After entering through a set of sliding glass doors in the new building, patients arrive in the atrium.

Wood accents and nature photographs decorate neutral walls, while tile covers the floor. Light floods the space through a panel of windows at the front of the building.

After checking in at the front desk or a blue kiosk, patients can take a seat on sleek gray couches and chairs.

For appointments with podiatrists and family and internal medicine physicians, patients go to the right of the atrium. Occupational medicine and a laboratory are also located on that side of the building toward the back, as is the urgent care clinic which has its own entrance.

Markham said St. Luke's has hired three new primary care physicians, two podiatrists and a handful of urgent care providers.

St. Luke's Imaging and Breast Screening Center is on the left side of the atrium. The center is equipped with the latest in imaging technology including a DEXA scan to measure bone mineral density, two ultrasound machines and a new CT scanner that is equipped with special software that reduces radiation to a low dose.

Neutral tones of beige, light-yellow and sage carry over into exam and waiting rooms.

Markham said patient response to the location, which is just blocks from retailers and restaurants, has been overwhelmingly positive. The number of patients coming in for imaging services, he said, keeps growing.

"We're seeing more patients now there than we were the same month last year," he said.

CARDIOVASCULAR ASSOCIATES ON SECOND FLOOR

A glass and steel staircase leads to the second floor, where UnityPoint Health - St. Luke's Cardiology Services / Cardiovascular Associates is located.

CVA also has an office at St. Luke's.

Peggy Hanner, CVA's chief operating officer, said the practice decided to open an office at Unity Point Health - St. Luke's Sunnybrook Medical Plaza because of its "easy access."

"It's a great location for patients, regardless of where they're coming from," she said. "We have a large segment of our practice that comes from outside of Sioux City -- Northwest Iowa into South Dakota and Nebraska. They were coming out here to go shopping if they were from out of town. This was an attraction for them to be in this area."

Dr. Jon Peacock, who subspecializes in cardiovascular disease, said navigating downtown Sioux City streets is challenging for elderly patients who come from out of town.

"They all know where (Unity Point Health - St. Luke's Sunnybrook Medical Plaza) is because they come here to shop," he said. "It's much easier."

Hanner said the 2,500 square foot space which occupies half of the second floor is a full cardiac suite that includes clinic services, cardiac screening services, cardiac rehab and cardiac imaging services such as vascular, echo, stress echo, EKG and pulmonary function testing, as well as nuclear medicine and a rhythm clinic.

A D-SPECT cardiac imaging system, Hanner said, is new to CVA. The nuclear medicine camera is the only one of its kind in the state of Iowa. The camera offers increased sensitivity, resolution and speed.

"The patient doesn't have to lie on a circular surround anymore," Peacock said. "They actually just sit on a bench and they lie down and sit upright to take the images. It's much easier on the patient. It's a much faster scan."

Because a major portion of CVA's practice is imaging services, Hanner said they expanded room sizes in imaging, which is located just off the waiting area. The site, she explained, is a second-site for St. Luke's to perform out-patient, non-invasive cardiology testing.

"The nice thing about this location is that we're not the only service out here. There's a whole radiology department right underneath us," Peacock said. "So I just need to send a patient down for a CT scan after I see him. I'll get the results and be able to go over them with him before he goes home."

Peacock said moving to an electronic medical records system in June 2002 played a role in the custom-designed layout, which features two large open pods that offer ample room for clinical staff, eight provider offices and 15 exam rooms -- two of which are access exam rooms equipped with electric exam tables that can be lowered and raised for patients with orthopedic or weight limitations.

The pods, where nurses and technicians sit, are surrounded by physician offices and patient rooms. An access corridor, located outside of the patient care area, houses clerical and scheduling staff. Hanner said this organizational feature helps reduce disturbances.

"We actually have a lot more clinical people to input all of that data," Peacock said. "The older space that we had was really cramped and crowded and inefficient."