By Louis Zylka
The 830 Times
Val Verde Regional Medical Center (VVRMC) will be introducing a new clinic to enhance the patient experience in its emergency room (ER).
The new convenient care clinic will include eight exam rooms and its own lobby for assisting patients. The clinic will be unveiled with a ribbon cutting on Aug. 11. The clinic will be open Monday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and it will be located on the left side of the ER when entering the main entrance.
Jorge Jurado, chief executive officer (CEO) of VVRMC, spoke about the clinic at the June 25 hospital board meeting, telling board members it will be designed to help patients by providing more options when they are waiting in the ER.
The staff for the clinic will include Dr. Jaime Gutierrez and family nurse practitioners Dennis Ong, John Hoover, Anel Delgado, Monica Escobedo and Sasha Valdez.
Jurado spoke with The 830 Times to give more details about the clinic, and he said the goal of the clinic is to improve the ER and enhance patient satisfaction. The clinic will manage the number of patients in the ER by assisting those who are waiting longer and may have less-urgent symptoms that can be treated faster.
“(The clinic) has been made to improve the ER. We know that there is opportunity there, and we are very happy with the progress we made,” Jurado said. “What we have seen in the last six months is that we have had a 20 percent increase in patient satisfaction. That is huge and exciting.”
Jurado talked about how the clinic will be similar to a walk-in facility by helping patients who have smaller issues, such as sprains, coughs, colds, stomachaches, etc. The clinic will accept patients based on their emergency severity index (ESI) level.
Jurado said it’s ideal for those with sprains, coughs, colds, sore throat, stomach ache, nausea, ear ache, flu, minor burns and minor lacerations.
Jurado said patients have the option to either register for the ER or bypass the ER and use the clinic if they qualify. He also said patients are not required to use the clinic if they choose not to.
The clinic has been in the works for six months, and it is part of an ongoing process to improve the hospital’s ER. Recent efforts to improve the ER include the addition of a patient experience liaison in early January 2025 and adding hospital staff by the entrance of the ER to assist patients. Jurado said VVRMC focuses on using feedback from patients to improve services.
“As CEO of the hospital, I want to make sure that we focus our time and resources on meeting the needs of the community. So we ask, ‘how do we make the ER faster?’ That is why we focus on this clinic because it will give more capacity to help patients faster,” Jurado said.
Lastly, Jurado said VVRMC has more plans to expand the services of its ER, including expanding the ER from 12 beds to 15 beds.
