YPSILANTI - Friday, Feb. 9, the Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents announced their plans to build a new primary urgent care facility on campus. This will be in collaboration with Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital, and Integrated Healthcare Associates (IHA).
Construction of the new facility will not begin until the summer of 2019. The new health center will be built off of Huron Drive and Oakwood Street in order to be accessible to Ypsilanti citizens and students alike.
Snow Health Center, the current main health provider for students at the university, will be completely replaced by the new facility. All health services, counseling (CAPS) services, and the psychology center services will move to the new building. Snow’s physical building has yet to be given a new purpose, if any, after the construction of the new center. EMU has plans to go over possible alternative functions for it in the future.
The board emphasized this new center will provide seven-day-a-week urgent care services, in order to help the students who have often mentioned they would like to get care without missing their classes. Non-student patients will also be able to utilize the center and make appointments.
The center will host 24/7 patient portal access for online scheduling needs. Vice President of EMU, Rhonda Longsworth, also mentioned the new center will offer X-Ray services.
Saint Joseph’s and the IHA will be providing $6.6 million for the new building’s construction and equipment on the inside while EMU will be contributing $1.8 million for the roads and sidewalks.
It’s currently unclear if all the current employees at the Snow Health Center will be offered jobs at the new facility. Walter Kraft, vice president of university communications, said it was likely all employees would be offered positions, but the details are still in progress.
