This year, Columbia Memorial Health (CMH) is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its first Rapid Care center in Valatie. Its opening was an important step to expand emergency services outside of the hospital in Hudson and provide accessible urgent care options to the largely rural communities CMH serves.
Since then, two more Rapid Care Centers have opened—one in Copake on the other end of Columbia County from Valatie, and the other in Catskill, across the Hudson River in Greene County. “We opened in Catskill in September 2021, and we were welcomed by the community with open arms,” says Dr. Michael Weisberg, CMH’s chief of emergency medicine and medical director for its Rapid Care centers.
The expansion of the Rapid Care network speaks to its increasingly important role for patients, particularly in the last two years of the pandemic. When in-person visits were suspended at the Copake center last fall, the team remained committed to assisting patients through the use of telehealth visits.
“Our providers, nurses, techs, and front-office staff all stepped up like never before,” says Dr. Weisberg. “Even with just telehealth in Copake, the number of patients we saw in the offices doubled by December 2021, from 60 patients per day to 120. We never saw numbers like that before, and we never turned anyone away.”
The Copake office is now open for in-person visits on Friday-Sunday from 9am to 4pm, with plans to expand those hours by the summertime. In Valatie, the Rapid Care center sees patients from 9am to 9pm, seven days a week. And as of April 1, the Catskill office is open from 9am to 8pm, seven days a week.
As has always been the case, an appointment is never necessary. “Our Rapid Care centers are all walk-ins,” Dr. Weisberg says. “We’re available to treat sprains, lacerations, strep throat, and other minor medical emergencies, illnesses, or ailments.” And if the patient has existing medical records with CMH, the Rapid Care team can access them to assist in diagnosis and treatment.
While in-person visits have resumed, patients can still request to be seen by a provider via telehealth if they prefer. Telehealth visits are available from 9am to 9pm, seven days a week. To initiate a telehealth visit, patients can simply call (518) 758-4300. “Our goal is to call the patient back to conduct that visit within 20 to 30 minutes after they request it,” Dr. Weisberg says.
Whether telehealth or in-person, patients can be assured that every Rapid Care provider has extensive training in the emergency room and plenty of experience in the community. “Many of our providers have been in the area for years,” says Dr. Weisberg. “We’re locally owned and locally sourced. Our patients are our neighbors, and we have a true connection to our community.”
This article appears in Spring/Summer 2022.
