WATERVILLE — MaineGeneral Health unveiled to the public Saturday its latest concept in medical care, the Thayer Center for Health, the state’s largest outpatient hospital.

The recently completed $16 million renovation converted the 250,000-square-foot former Thayer unit of MaineGeneral, its Waterville inpatient hospital, into what officials call a “one stop shop for patients.”

Additional Images

The Thayer Center for Health, shown above, in Waterville, hosted an open house Saturday to show off its newly completed 16 million renovation. Staff photo by Evan Belanger

CAT scan coordinator Seth Hebert explains the new low-radiation CAT-scan machine at the Thayer Center for Health in Waterville. Compared to standard CAT-scan machines, the new device delivers 20 percent to 40 percent less radiation, depending on the size of the patient, he said. Staff photo by Evan Belanger

MaineGeneral’s inpatient care is now centralized in the MaineGeneral Medical Center, Alfond Center for Health in Augusta, which opened a year ago.

At Thayer Center for Health’s open house Saturday, officials touted amenities such as the new low-radiation CAT scan machine installed in April, outpatient surgical and physical therapy suites and convenient access to more than 70 medical specialists, general practitioners and other medical staff members under one roof.

“It’s kind of a one-stop shop for patients with the exception of the inpatient or overnight stay,” said MaineGeneral Health CEO Chuck Hays.

The health center combines more than 10 MaineGeneral functions throughout the area, pulling doctors from Seton Hospital in Waterville, a residency practice in Fairfield, rented space on Kennedy Memorial Drive and a practice in the FirstPark business park in Oakland, Hays said.

Hays predicted the changes would have little economic effect on those communities, since most of the practices were within three miles of the center and there were no job reductions at Thayer.

MaineGeneral continues to operate a family medical practice in Fairfield, he said, and the site in Oakland will be repurposed for use by another MaineGeneral Health specialist. He said details of that will be released later.

Meanwhile, Hays said combining the practices will make it easier for MaineGeneral Health to recruit medical specialists.

When the system operated out of several smaller sites, each with one or two doctors, specialists tended to go to larger places, where they could work fewer nights and weekends because the provider had more physicians in the rotation, Hays said.

He said the consolidation allowed “all the specialty groups became much bigger, and effectively, we were able to recruit more physicians.”

The new center also will result in a cost savings for the health system, according to Hays, by making health care operations more efficient.

While the initial investment for Thayer and the Alfond Center for Health inpatient provider in Augusta means the health system won’t see any practical savings immediately, Hays said it realized $7 million in efficiencies during fiscal year 2014.

“For us, it’s really to provide better access to patients and their families, to have more of the services under one roof that are coordinating,” he said.

Spokeswoman Joy Leach said the center offers surgery on an outpatient basis and that it staffs a 24-hour emergency department.

If patients gave to be transferred to Augusta for an overnight stay, she said, an agreement with Delta Ambulance allows Thayer to offer ambulance transport at no additional cost to patients.

Leach called the turnout at the open house, which the health system advertised heavily in advance, steady.

“There’s a lot of interest to see what kind of renovations,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of pleasantly surprised faces that we’ve been seeing here.”

This is a corrected version.

Evan Belanger — 861-9239

ebelanger@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @ebelanger

Related Stories