Bayfront Health ER & Urgent Care opens its doors in Cape Coral

Bayfront Health ER and Urgent Care in Cape Coral opened Thursday in north Cape Coral, providing a service closer to community members who would have otherwise traveled greater distances.

“I don’t think you could ever have enough medical facilities,” Bonnie Bailey said.

Tara McCoy agrees, and she’s doing something about it. She’s the CEO of Bayfront Health Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda. McCoy is the driving force behind the new, all-in-one ER and urgent care facility in north Cape Coral.

“It takes all the guesswork out of the patient,” McCoy said. “So as patients are coming in, they don’t have to decide, ‘Do I have to go to urgent care?’ ‘Is this something that I need the emergency department for?’”

The design is simple and easy. Half the space is urgent care. The other half is a full-service emergency room.

“We have CT scanning; we have X-ray; we have lab on-site; we have ultrasound; we have board-certified emergency department physicians, critical care-trained emergency nurses,” McCoy said.

McCoy said the perceived exterior of the facility should not fool anyone about the services it officers.

“They’re flexible rooms and can be opened and shut or moved from one location to the other,” McCoy said. “So we can transition the more urgent care rooms if needed or more emergency department rooms.”

Bayfront Health expects to treat as many as 20,000 people annually. Cape Coral Hospital sees 72,000. The new ER and urgent care facility will create 50 new jobs.

Community members look forward to the addition of more health services near them.

“I think it’s important for people that live in the area that they have these kind of facilities available to them, especially the older people,” Denis Anderson.