UW Medicine set to open neighborhood clinic in Olympia

UW Medicine is set to open its first neighborhood clinic in Olympia, an extension of a partnership announced last year by Capital Medical Center and the University of Washington group.

The UW Neighborhood Clinic Olympia will lease a 12,300-square-foot space on Ensign Road, across from Providence St. Peter Hospital. The building is owned by Capital Medical Center and previously was home to Olympia Radiology, said Julie Leydelmeyer, a spokeswoman for Capital Medical.

The primary care clinic will open in January, followed by an urgent care clinic at the same address six months later, UW Medicine spokeswoman Kim Blakeley said.

“It just made sense for us to have a partner in South Sound for this opportunity and other opportunities to come,” she said.

The clinic initially will be home to two doctors and two nurse practitioners, she said.

The new clinic will be UW Medicine’s 11th and its first in South Sound. It also has clinics in Des Moines and Federal Way, but is best known for its neighborhood clinics throughout the Seattle area, she said.

“It fulfills a need to bring medicine to people’s backyards,” said Blakeley about the decision to come to Olympia.

She also said UW Medicine is the accountable care network for Boeing and other large employer groups.

A third factor is the passage of the Affordable Care Act, informally known as “Obamacare,” which increased access to health care coverage and boosted the need for more primary care clinics.

Even more clinics are either here or on the way.

Providence Medical Group opened the first phase of its Providence Medical Group West Olympia clinic in July, occupying half of a converted Office Depot building on Cooper Point Road near Black Lake Boulevard.

In January, the clinic will offer urgent care services on the same site, and by next July, primary care services will fill out the remainder of the 24,000-square-foot building, said Angela Maki, a spokeswoman for Providence Health & Services, Southwest Washington.

The site will eventually be home to 21 doctors and nurse practitioners, she said.

Providence St. Peter Hospital also is working with the city of Lacey to convert its 30,000-square-foot chemical dependency center on College Street into another primary care clinic to be operated by Providence Medical Group.

It is expected to open in September 2016, Maki said.

Providence will continue to offer chemical dependency services, but at a site to be named, she said.

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 4:06 PM with the headline "UW Medicine set to open neighborhood clinic in Olympia."