Hudson Headwaters slew of moves

By Gordon Woodworth, Chronicle News Editor

Hudson Headwaters Health Network is dramatically expanding as 2015 draws to a close. Its new initiatives include:

• Opening a new 28,000 sq. ft. primary care building west of Northway Exit 18 as of Dec. 7.
• Buying the 90 South Street building across from Glens Falls Hospital.
• Absorbing the Glens Falls Obstetrics and Gynecology practice of Dr. Doug Provost.
• Adding allergist/immunologist Dr. Michael Slaughter.
• Making pediatrics the focus of Queensbury Family Health off Aviation Road.

And there’s more.

“We think we are on the leading edge of how to give health care and be really effective with it,” Dr. John Rugge, founder and CEO of Hudson Headwaters, tells The Chronicle.

“Our first health centers were established because communities that were losing their doctors came to us and wanted help,” he said. “And now it’s a combination of communities needing help, but it’s also physicians looking for support and asking to join in, and then as we start a service, we realize it just has to be bigger. There’s a long line of people who want to come in the door.”

Hudson Headwaters has a 2015 budget of $81-million and a staff of 750 encompassing more than 200 nurses, 77 physicians and 80 physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nurse midwives.

Patient visits have risen from 243,000 in 2010 to 317,000 in four years. Patient visits in 2015 are projected at 352,700, up 45% in five years.

In the last 12 months alone, there have been more than 100,000 patient visits at HHHN’s three Glens Falls-area health centers — Carey Road west of Northway Exit 18, Queensbury Family Health off Aviation Road, and the Health Center on Broad Street in Glens Falls.

Here’s some detail on the growth spurt.

West Mtn. campus expands

On Monday, Dec. 7, Hudson Headwaters opened Building 2, a $7-million, 28,000-square-foot health center on what it now calls the West Mountain Health Services Campus. It offers primary care, family practice, internal medicine, behavioral health and phlebotomy services, with 24 primary-care exam rooms and 7,000 square feet of extra space for future growth.

“It’s our biggest health center in the Glens Falls area in terms of space,” said Dr. Rugge. “As we do health centers, we keep refining our design and this one is really designed around the team care we are now providing, with additional services including care management and behavioral health.”

It’s Hudson Headwaters’ 17th health care facility and was financed by Glens Falls National Bank, Dr. Rugge said.

Pediatrics focus at Aviation

Queensbury Family Health on Manor Drive, off Aviation Road, is now dedicated to pediatrics. Primary care services were moved to West Mountain Health Services’ Building 2. “Queensbury Family Health has become way overcrowded,” Dr. Rugge said, “and as we have expanded the pediatric practice, it really made sense to move the adult providers to West Mountain and concentrate on pediatrics in Queensbury.”

GF Ob/Gyn joining network

Dr. Douglas Provost and his Glens Falls Obstetrics and Gynecology practice is joining Hudson Headwaters, adding to HHHN’s expanded women’s health services.

“About two years ago, North Country Ob/Gyn joined in, and now Dr. Provost and his practice is joining us in early January,” Dr. Rugge said. “…Dr. Provost will be making the transition to our medical records and procedures at 90 South Street, where our major Ob/Gyn practice is, and then he will be practicing at West Mountain Health Services #1, our current facility.

“We will have a gynecology wing in that center, so we will have two places in the metro area, 90 South Street and West Mountain Health Services #1, for doing Ob/Gyn care.”

Dr. Rugge said Hudson Headwaters plans to buy 90 South Street. “It’s an ideal location for us, and additional parking has been arranged, so one major impediment has been taken care of…The current owners have secured two lots adjacent to the property, and so we will be parking on the premises.”

Dr. Slaughter joining HHHN

Immunologist/allergist Dr. Michael Slaughter will join Hudson Headwaters in 2016 and practice out of Dr. Provost’s former office on South Western Avenue in Queensbury, said Dr. Rugge. HHHN is buying the building. Dr. Rugge said that adding Dr. Slaughter is “one more way in which Hudson Headwaters is expanding into some of the medical specialties that complement the primary care we do so well.”

More growth at Carey Rd.

Planned for 2016 is a 2,000-square-foot expansion of West Mountain Health Services Building 1, at Carey Road in Queensbury, “for expanded palliative care,” Dr. Rugge said. “This is a service that has not been available at all in Glens Falls. This is different from hospice care. This is adding an extra dimension for people who are seriously ill and looking at all the ways to not interrupt care that is looking at reversing disease or curing disease, but adding all of the things to make sure the people are comfortable and surrounded by all of the care they can use.”

Expansion into Champlain

Hudson Headwaters will open its 18th health center, in Champlain, New York. “It’s a leap north. We can see the lights of Canada from there,” said Dr. Rugge. He said, “This came about through a combination of one physician who was looking at leaving a legacy, Dr. Maurice Racine, and a community that was looking for an assurance of primary care moving forward, came to know about us, and it all came together.” Dr. Rugge said, “We are looking to start construction in the spring of 2016 and open in early 2017. That health center is scheduled to be 25,000 square feet.”

Pondering LaRose Ave. lot

Dr. Rugge said Hudson Headwaters is thinking hard about how to utilize the large lot it bought from the Salvation Army that runs between LaRose Street and South Western Avenue north of the Board Street Hannaford.

“Our plan is to make plans,” Dr. Rugge said, laughing. “We’ve given ourselves a self-imposed deadline, saying we really need to understand what the scale and scope of services we will be offering there by mid-2016. We feel that experiencing the type of growth we are experiencing, by early next year we will have the clarity to know what kind of building we should do.

“In the course of all of this, what we have done is come to understand that a lot of people know one thing or another about Hudson Headwaters.

“They know their local health center or their own doctor or they see our podiatrist or one of our midwives delivered their baby, but very few people, we are told — and I find this very hard to believe — understand the combination of services we are doing, and now that all of this is coming together, we think it’s a good idea for people to know, whether you are a Hudson Headwaters patient or you’re not, and you are sick on a Thursday night, that urgent care is open and available to you.

“We think it’s important to know that if you’re struggling and don’t have insurance, and yet have health care needs, there’s a place to come, and we will do everything we can, and it’s a lot now.”

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