Expanded CRMC Urgent Care Hours Go Into Effect Monday

Cookeville Regional Medical Center expanded its Urgent Care hours to 7am to 11pm daily, effective Monday.

Director of Marketing and Communications Hannah Davis said seven full-time and four part-time medical providers are currently seeing about 600 patients per week. The extended service time is intended to take pressure off the emergency room.

“The whole idea came from someone who actually contacted our CEO Buffy Key,” Davis said. “They contacted them saying their child had hurt themselves and it was like eight o’clock at night, and they had to sit in the ER for hours.”

The Urgent Care formerly closed at 7 p.m.

“Our CEO, she had mentioned when they first started the Urgent Care Clinic, they thought that it would help with the number of ER visits we get, it would lower that number” Davis said. “Well, the volume didn’t really go down much in the ER. Now they can come to the Urgent Care when they have those boo boos and uh-ohs that typically you would have to go to the ER for.”

Davis said it is important to help reduce emergency room wait times, because those with minor injuries experience longer wait times while more serious emergencies take priority.

“A patient who has a potential broken bone or needs stitches, can go to an urgent care instead of having to wait in the ER for a longer time to be seen, because there are people who show up with more acute things like heart attacks and stroke,” Davis said.

Davis said the imaging center is also now available until 11 p.m., so if bones are broken, you can go to Urgent Care first and bypass the emergency room and still get an X-ray.

Davis said the decision to keep the doors open later was a team effort.

“We looked at what would work best. Kind of looking and seeing where we are seeing an increase in our emergency room, where are we seeing these needs at,” Davis said. “Then, it just kind of went from there to staffing, so can we staff, can we add additional staff so that we can cover these hours. Once that was done, it was time to look at how we can serve our community through these expanded hours.”