Adventist Hospital to also expand in upcounty

Two new Germantown clinics will open this fall

A prenatal clinic and a new primary care clinic, both for low-income residents, will open in space next to the Shady Grove Emergency Center at 19731 Germantown Road, Robert Jepson, Adventist's associate vice president of government relations and public policy, said on Monday.

A prenatal clinic currently operated by Adventist HealthCare on Piccard Drive in Rockville will close, he said. Many of its clients live in the upcounty.

The new primary care clinic will operate in partnership with Mobile Medical Care Inc. and will be open by the end of September, Adventist officials said. The prenatal clinic will open sometime this fall, they said.

"We're very concerned and interested in ensuring that the upcounty community has improved health

care now and in the future," Jepson said.

He disclosed the plans during an interview about the plans of Holy Cross Hospital to build a new 93-bed hospital and maternity clinic in Germantown, about a mile from the Adventist emergency center. The Holy Cross plans were announced last week by hospital officials who cited the growing needs of the upcounty's aging population.

"I think that [statement] warrants further scrutiny," Jepson said. "We already have an emergency center

that takes ambulance traffic. We have Shady Grove Hospital. That presupposes there is no existing

emergency center in Germantown."

Jepson said planning for the new Adventist facilities in Germantown began long before Holy Cross

officials announced their expansion plans, which also include a health care clinic for the uninsured in Gaithersburg.

The new prenatal clinic in Germantown essentially will be the Piccard Drive clinic relocated, Jepson said. The Rockville staff of two midwives and two nurses will relocate to Germantown, said Marisa Lavine a spokeswoman for Adventist Health Care.

Jepson said Adventist executives decided on the move after concluding that women from upcounty had to travel too far to reach it. In the meantime, women in the central part of the county have easier access to other clinics, he said.

Lavine said the prenatal clinic will limit its services to women enrolled in the Montgomery County Maternity Partnership Program, which serves women without health insurance.

The primary care clinic will be operated with Mobile Medical Care, a non-profit organization that relies

on 19 health care centers and three mobile medical vans to deliver free or low-cost medical care to low-income or uninsured patients in Montgomery County.