CARMEL MOUNTAIN RANCH: Scripps Clinic opens new outpatient center

Facility is twice the size of old one across the street

By ANDREA MOSS - Staff Writer | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 6:09 PM PDT ∞

CARMEL MOUNTAIN RANCH ---- A new Scripps Clinic that offers more parking, expanded services and longer urgent care hours than its predecessor is providing outpatient services to area residents.

Two years in the making, the clinic opened Monday at 15025 Innovation Drive. The facility replaces a smaller Scripps Clinic that operated across the street for 22 years.

Part of the nonprofit Scripps Health network, the clinic is the biggest of 11 that the health care provider operates.

Scripps teamed up with Kilroy Realty Corp. to build the $100 million-plus, six-story building that houses the clinic.

Melody Stewart, senior administrative director at the clinic, said Tuesday that Scripps spent about $40 million on the building's interior. The result is a 150,000-square-feet facility that is nearly twice the size of the old clinic.

The extra space enabled Scripps to add services and increase the number of doctors operating out of the clinic from about 50 to about 70, Stewart said.

"And we have about 20 percent room for growth," she said. "So we have hired some additional primary care physicians and increased our subspeciality (services). We also hired a new plastic surgeon."

Services at the clinic now include ophthalmology, women's care, diagnostic imaging and physical therapy. Like the old facility, the new one also includes an urgent care center.

That part of the clinic is twice the size of the old one and is open two more hours each day. The urgent care center now treats patients from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

Plastic surgery and ambulatory surgery, or those done on an outpatient basis, have also been added. The ambulatory surgery center will begin treating patients after that part of the facility is accredited ---- something expected by December or January.

Easy parking is expected to be one of the biggest hits with patients, though. Finding a place to leave a car was difficult at the old clinic, which had 297 parking spaces. The new facility includes a garage with 649 spaces, said Stewart.

"That has always been a big issue," she said of the parking. "And I'm seeing smiling faces as (patients) come in."

Palomar Pomerado Health, a public health care district, opened an outpatient center last year at Pomerado Hospital in nearby Poway. The district also plans to build a satellite medical center in Rancho Penasquitos.

Stewart said Scripps officials do not see those facilities as potential threats to the clinic, in part, because marketing information shows the facility draws most of its patients from Rancho Bernardo, Carmel Mountain Ranch and other communities north of Highway 56.

"The patients that come to Scripps choose Scripps, and I think that they'll always choose Scripps," Stewart added.

Bill Gable, chief operations executive for Scripps, said the new facility will enable the health care provider to meet the community's growing medical needs.

"Essentially, what that enables us to do is to bring more diverse medical services to the community," he said. "And that's good for the patients and good for us."

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.