Before there were walk-in clinics and urgent care centers, there were family doctors—the doctors grandma talks about, who spent years looking after the health needs of entire families; made house calls; and, on the less rosy side of things, worked about 100 hours a week.
Those long weeks proved unsustainable for most, leading many family physicians to encourage patients to schedule appointments at hospitals instead. The shaky transition led to packed emergency rooms, filled with patients who didn’t really have “emergency” health issues.
Emergency care physicians like Mark Pomerantz saw the need for a space where patients with non-life-threatening issues could be treated but without making appointments well in advance—something in between emergency rooms and family doctors.
That’s where the idea for walk-in clinics and urgent care centers stemmed from, and the first popped up sometime in the ’70s. Pomerantz, a local doctor, helped open one of the Central Coast’s first in Santa Maria in 1983. It was called Central Coast Urgent Care, and it was immediately a hit.
“We were so busy,” Pomerantz told the Sun.
Since then, Pomerantz and several other doctors have spent years providing walk-in care to Santa Maria residents. But the building at 340 Betteravia Road is now several decades old; it’s small and needs major renovations. So the center is starting fresh with a new location, new equipment, and a new name.
Central Coast Urgent Care officially reopened as Med Plus Central Coast on May 13, and the new facility at 2271 South Depot St. is decked out with all-new medical equipment, including digital radiology machines, mechanical examination tables, no-touch lamps, and a new IT system that will allow Med Plus staff to transition from paper health records to an electronic system.
The electronic records system makes it easy for Med Plus to share information with Marian Regional Medical Center and other Dignity Health locations and will allow the center to more efficiently offer increased services.
In short, Pomerantz said, “it’s quicker and it’s better.”
The new facility also has space for physical therapy services, which Pomerantz said Med Plus has long provided but at another location.
Physicians have been working for months to get the word out, and they plan to host a ribbon cutting and open house in celebration of the new facility on June 18 at 4:30 p.m.
So far, Pomerantz said, things are going as well as they went in 1983.
“People love it,” he said.
Highlights:
• Santa Maria’s Code Compliance Division announced on June 6 that The Garden Mediterranean Restaurant and Cafe was awarded the Code Officers Distinguished Excellence (CODE) Award, which honors local businesses that focus on “neighborhood pride, preservation, and beautification.” The owners of The Garden, located at 122 E. Boone St., updated the building, beautified landscaping, and made other improvements that enhanced the area’s appearance, according to the city.
• The Sweet Spot planned to celebrate its grand opening in the Santa Maria Town Center Mall at 4 p.m. on June 7. The newly opened candy store features an assortment of sweet treats from a number of countries—including Japan, where co-owners Tracy and Rudy Ruiz, former Air Force veterans, were both stationed for three years.
• The Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce recently joined Santa Barbara for Safe and Local Transport, a coalition focusing on supporting the reopening of ExxonMobil’s Santa Ynez Unit. The Santa Ynez Unit opened in 1970 and closed in 2015, after a third-party pipeline ruptured. According to the chamber, restoring the Santa Ynez Unit would bring jobs back to the community and improve Santa Barbara County’s economy.
Kasey Bubnash wrote this week’s Biz Spotlight. Information should be sent to the Sun via fax, mail, or email at spotlight@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 13-20, 2019.
