NCH's new Marco Island urgent care center gets underway with groundbreaking

Marco Island is another step closer to its new $18 million urgent care center with the official groundbreaking on Friday morning.

The 24,000-square-foot facility being built by Naples-based NCH Healthcare System will replace the existing 40-year-old building at 40 S. Heathwood Dr.

"It's the 40th anniversary of this building and I think it's about time to retire it," NCH Chief Executive Officer Paul Hiltz told the group gathered at the physicians building next to the existing urgent care, which will remain open during construction.

The new urgent care center, which, like the current one, will function more like an emergency room in terms of services and pricing, is on schedule to start accepting patients by mid-2025, Marco Urgent Care Board Chairwoman Dianna Dohm said.

But she said they still need to raise the rest of the funding.

Private donors will foot the entire bill, NCH Chief Impact Officer Mara Hammond said. Two couples have provided $9 million of the $9.6 million that has been raised so far, she said.

"NCH is committed to doing this no matter what but philanthropy accelerates it," Hammond said.

Those donors, Pat and Scot Kaufman and Steve and Barbara Slaggie, will get their names on the building and the campus. The building will be named the Pat and Scot Kaufman Healthcare Center. The campus will be named after the Slaggies.

More:Marco Island's new NCH urgent care gets $9 million naming gifts

The four made pleas for the community to give to the project, even the smallest amount will help, Barbara Slaggie said.

Marco Island visitor Jim Talbot is extra thankful for the healthcare services on Marco Island. Two weeks ago, he passed out on the beach and came to in NCH's downtown Naples facility after a blood clot in his brain was removed.

The Canadian snowbird attended the groundbreaking looking tan and healthy. His wife called him the star.

"I'm not the star, the hospital is the star," Talbot said. "I feel great."

Those are the kind of procedures that will be available at the new facility, Hiltz said.

Urgent Care to bring in more doctors, specialists

"This new facility here is going to be a big deal to improve access," Hiltz said. "So Marco Island residents won't have to drive up to Baker (Hospital)."

NCH will more than double the number of doctors it has rotating in on a part-time and full-time basis now, Hiltz said. There are six to eight who work on Marco Island currently. More specialists are being recruited, he said.

The new urgent care will have 12 private exam rooms, one private triage/patient intake room, all new equipment -including CT and X-ray, and a covered ambulance entrance, Dohm said.

The second floor will house future physicians’ services that NCH doesn't provide, said Chief Operating Officer Jon Kling in an interview. Those may include a dementia center, he said.

NCH is planning to bring in a preventative cardiologist and pediatric doctors, and has already recruited Pat Smith, a sports medicine physician and orthopedic surgeon who is the team doctor for the University of Missouri. He bought a home on Marco Island and will be here in the fall, Hiltz said.

Two spine doctors from New York-based HSS will create an in-patient/out-patient center at the facility to conduct minimally invasive procedures for Southwest Florida, Kling said. HSS has a facility in West Palm Beach, but this will be the first joint venture to build a surgical center, Hammond said.

The facility will be built in three phases: construction of the new building, demolition of the old building, and then remodeling the physicians' building next door, Dohm said.

More:NCH urgent care on Marco Island moving closer to construction with site plans approved