MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Va. – The Carilion New River Valley Medical Center Pediatric Specialty Clinic is officially open.
“This is a culmination of a tremendous amount of work over the past several years to integrate our pediatric specialty services into the New River Valley to be able to support the patients here,” said Amy Kageals, senior director for Carilion Children’s outpatient services.
The clinic is a specialty office, unlike your general care office.
“This is a pediatric specialty clinic office, so we won’t see the traditional sick patients here for ear infections or the flu,” said Kageals. “This is for pediatric patients who have specialty needs such as they have a congenital cardiac issue, [or] they have a developmental concern.”
The medical center previously was offering some specialty pediatric services, but now they have their own dedicated department.
“The hope is to really be able to serve the communities better,” said Christopher Pierce, interim chair of Pediatrics at Carilion.
It is equipped with four exam rooms and a procedure room to handle anything that comes up.
“What we are going to achieve here is almost doubling the size of our clinic and the number of specialties we are able to bring in,” Pierce said.
In this exam room, many of the patients will have serious health issues, but instead of having to drive to Roanoke every time they need to see a doctor, they will have access right in the New River Valley.
“Our hopes are to get the care closer to home,” said Pierce. “Right now, we have children that will drive two to three hours or more to get to the facilities in Roanoke.”
They said in future, they are hoping that this facility could expand even more so they could take on more patients in the area.