Higher-profile location houses clinic, radiology

By Jeffery Kurz
Record-Journal staff

The 48,000-square-foot, three-story building going up in the Stop & Shop Plaza will focus MidState Medical Center’s Wallingford operations in a prominent location, fortifying the hospital’s presence in one of its main service areas.
“We have all these separate entities dispersed around the community, this was an opportunity to bring them all together,” said Karen Goyette, MidState’s vice president of administration and business development.
Several services are relocating to the new building, at 863 N. Main St. Ext., including a walk-in clinic run by the MidState Medical Group, which is moving from Church Street in Yalesville.
The walk-in clinic, which sees about 15,000 patient visits each year, is set up to treat the same type of illnesses and injuries as MediQuick, the walk-in center that MidState recently moved from Paddock Avenue in Meriden to the site of the former movie theater on Pomeroy Avenue in Meriden.
The new Wallingford clinic is set up to handleminor injuries and illnesses that may otherwise lead people to the emergency room. Those include sore throats, earaches, burns, sports injuries and flu symptoms.
The walk-in clinic is set to open on June 27.

Also relocating are MidState’s Wallingford-based radiology services, which at the new building will include a separate imaging area for women. At the new location, MidState services will include MRI, CT scan, ultrasound and digital mammography, as well as a nuclear medicine room.
The radiology services will combine those MidState ran on Barnes Road and South Main Street, Goyette said. While the Barnes Road office used a mobile MRI, the machinery will be at a fixed location in the new building.

The second floor of the new building will house occupational therapy and comprehensive orthopedics and physical therapy, run by the Eastern Rehabilitation Network, which along with MidState is part of Hartford Healthcare. Comprehensive orthopedics is set to open July 24.
“It’s all about accessibility for the patient,” said Pamela Cretella, MidState’s communications coordinator.

All told, more than 50 employees will work at the new location, Goyette said.
“I think it will be a positive move on their part and positive for Wallingford,” said Robin Wilson, president and chief executive of the Quinnipiac Chamber of Commerce.