ReadyCare moving to BGSU site

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New patients will be matriculating at the Falcon Health Center next month.
Wood County Hospital will close its ReadyCare facility on North Main Street and shift those services to
the health center near the campus effective May 12.
Falcon Health Center, which opened last fall to provide medical care to students and staff at Bowling
Green State University, is operated by Wood County Hospital.
ReadyCare offers basic, non-emergency treatment for illness and infections on evenings and weekends,
filling a gap left between emergency rooms and doctors offices. Shifting the service to Falcon Health
Center will allow for expanded hours and treatment options, said Catharine Harned, Wood County
Hospital’s director of marketing and business development.
The North Main Street operation averages seven to 10 patients per weekday evening, and about 15 per day
on the weekends, she said.
"The service is great for individuals requiring healthcare services who don’t have a primary care
physician, as well as those who require same day services, but are unable to be seen by their own
physician," Harned stated.
Now, walk-in hours will run from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and
Sundays, on a first-come, first-served basis. There will be designated parking spots for those clients,
with others for BGSU patients, Harned said.
There will also be more convenience through expanded capabilities at FHC versus ReadyCare. While the
North Main Street building offered limited walk-in treatment, anyone in need of x-rays or laboratory
work had to go somewhere else for those services.
With Falcon Health Center’s digital connection to Wood County Hospital across town, more of that type of
treatment will be available on-site, as well as a pharmacy that’s open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The 16 staff members at ReadyCare – physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, and medical assistants –
will be worked into the FHC fold.
Dr. Nick Espinoza, medical director at both Falcon Health Center and ReadyCare, has been involved with
ReadyCare since it opened seven years ago. He said it will be bittersweet to see it close, but staff
from both facilities are excited about the change, rather than challenged by it.
"With what we’re going to see happening, there’s a lot of enthusiasm with the staff," he said.

"This is actually going to be a very straight-forward marriage between two currently functioning
entities that are just separated by geography."

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