Emergency Room Center Coming To Lake Ridge

Lake Ridge residents will have their own 24-hour emergency care center by early 2012.

Sentara Lake Ridge will be built next to Lake Ridge Internal Medicine on the corner of Minnieville and Summit School roads where board-certified doctors will provide around-the-clock emergency care, imaging services and lab work. Emergency patients and those who make appointments will use the services, said Charlene Wilkins, of Sentara Potomac Hospital.

Wilkins said there is a demand for emergency services in the Lake Ridge area. The emergency department at Sentara Potomac Hospital is designed to accommodate 40,000 patient visits per year, but it is now serving about 60,000 patients each year.

“Lake Ridge was selected as a convenient location for area residents,” she said.  “The population within a five-mile radius of the site is 188,580 and is expected to grow by 9.6 percent over the next five years to 206,772 by 2014. Using national use rates, the 2014 population in this five-mile radius would support 82,068 emergency department visits.”

Wilkins said Sentara Lake Ridge will be open seven days a week, and will be staffed by the board-certified physicians of BestPractices, who provide services at Sentara Potomac Hospital’s Irene V. Hylton Emergency Care Center.

She said the advanced imaging services will be under the medical direction of Potomac Radiology and Imaging Associates, who also provide services at Sentara Potomac Hospital.

Sentara’s plans will be presented and discussed tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the joint Lake Ridge Occoquan Coles Civic Association and Planning Environment Land Use Committee meeting in the McCoart Building.

LOCCA’s acting treasurer, Tom Burrell, said the group is hoping that there will be an inter-parcel connection between Sentara Lake Ridge and the Tackett’s Village property to provide fire and rescue access.