New Era in Health Care for Thundermist's Patients
Posted on: Thursday, 17 November 2005, 18:00 CST
By CYNTHIA NEEDHAM Journal Staff Writer
* The agency serves 14,000 Northern Rhode Island patients.
* * *
WOONSOCKET - Thundermist Health Center officials cut the ribbon on their spacious new center Monday, three months after it opened to the public.
Since August, the Clinton Street center, formerly home to a Save- Rite warehouse, has been treating the medical, psychiatric, and social care needs of Thundermist's 14,000 Northern Rhode Island patients.
But until now, officials were so busy treating patients, they never got a chance to celebrate the new headquarters.
On Monday, more than 200 people gathered at the brightly lit site to celebrate the facility and what it will mean for health care in Rhode Island. (Thundermist also has centers in West Warwick and South Kingstown.)
"Thundermist is an innovator in health care. Thundermist cares enough to offer its patients the best health care. This new building is a cornerstone of that legacy," Thundermist CEO Maria Montanaro said in her remarks.
For 30 years, Thundermist has treated low-income and uninsured patients in need of medical care. But until August, Thundermist was handling 80,000 appointments each year in a cramped, dark center on Arnold Street.
Two years in the making, the new center was purchased and renovated through a $6.5-million tax-exempt bond and nearly $1 million in donations from private and public sources.
"Our patients and staff are now integrated into one holistic center which treats individuals and families across the entire spectrum of primary care," Montanaro said.
Thundermist officials say they carefully designed the new facility with their patients in mind. Not only did it need to provide a technologically advanced clinic that was large enough to meet the demands of 14,000 patients, it needed to do so in an environment that made patients feel dignified.
That's why they focused so much on creating an aesthetically pleasing space with natural light and comfortable chairs.
Already the center uses a paperless check-in system that avoids the check-in desk and allows patients more privacy. And eventually, the center also hopes to computerize all its medical records, eliminating those bulky charts altogether.
On hand to tour the new site was Eileen Howard Dunn, a vice president for community relations at Woonsocket-based CVS, who presented Thundermist with a check for $150,000.
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* Kate Frometa, left, a midwife, and Emily C. Harrison, a pediatrician, show off an examination room at the Thundermist Health Center in Woonsocket.
JOURNAL PHOTO / STEVE SZYDLOWSKI
Source: Providence Journal
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