"We want our community to know we have heard you," said YRMC's Vice President of Strategy and Ambulatory Operations, Justin Farren, during this episode of Arizona Edition with KAWC's Lou Gum
When it comes to health and medicine in Yuma County, access to care, affordability, and health options are three major challenges.
Justin Farren is the Vice President of Strategy and Ambulatory Operations at Yuma Regional Medical Center. Farren is focused on the gaps in healthcare that patients in Yuma County experience and how to meet their needs.
"My focus is really on making sure the community has access to medical services and other services they can walk into and walk out of within the same day without having to stay overnight," Farren said.
Farren talks about a new YRMC health campus to serve east Yuma County that plans to break ground in late spring in the Foothills.
"We want our community members to know we have heard you," said Farren after hearing for years that the community in the Foothills wanted closer access to healthcare. The growing community in the Foothills has one walk-in clinic and it currently sees 20,000 patients a year, Farren explained.
"In emergency situations, time matters, and by shrinking that time we know we are going to save lives and health outcomes," he said.
The health campus would provide family medicine, pediatrics, ob-gyn, clinic services, on top of plans for a free-standing emergency department for residents in east county.
Construction will take a year and is slated to begin this Spring. The new healthcare campus could be operational by the beginning of 2022.
