• Mayo Clinic Opens Gate Parkway-area Primary Care Center

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mayo Clinic's new primary care center near the intersection of Gate Parkway and the I-295 East Beltway opens today.

"Mayo Clinic is expanding primary care services to meet patients' needs, improve access and bring primary care closer to where our patients live," says John Presutti, D.O., the medical director for Mayo Clinic's three freestanding primary care centers.

The two-story, 40,000-square-foot, $16.7 million center is located at 7826 Ozark Drive in the fast-growing Hampton Village area. The center will open with five physicians and an advanced registered nurse practitioner, but it is built to eventually accommodate more than 20 care providers. The center is supported by about 30 full- and part-time allied health staff.

This is the first new freestanding primary care center that Mayo Clinic has built in 16 years. The Mayo Clinic Primary Care Center in St. Augustine opened in 1997; the center at the Beaches opened in 1995.

The new center has family medicine and sports medicine physicians who provide care to patients of all ages, including infants, adolescents and adults. On-site radiology and laboratory services will provide X-ray, mammography, ultrasound and basic tests.

The center's hallmark is team-based care with access to Mayo Clinic specialists when a patient needs it. The center offers extended hours: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday, and 8 a.m. to noon Saturday.

"The expansion is not only helping Mayo Clinic meet patients' needs, it's a natural extension of adopting health care reform, which is placing a greater emphasis on primary care and the concept of a patient-centered medical home," Dr. Presutti says.

"The medical home concept emphasizes coordination, whole-person orientation and partnerships between patients and their care providers," he says. "Mayo Clinic's team-based primary care and specialty medicine, experience with collaboration, and advanced use of a single electronic medical record makes it ideal to nurture the concept."