Delta Health held a ribbon cutting last week to celebrate the grand opening of the Cedaredge Family Medicine clinic at 255 Grand Mesa Drive. The main health care provider in the county purchased the clinic from retiring physician Dr. Terry Wade, who served over 2000 patients in the span of over 30 years. Delta Health CEO Jonathan Cohee talked to KVNF about the history of the clinic, the clinic's new doctor and plans for the future.
"Dr. Terry Wade has been in this building. This building was built in 1910, and Dr. Terry Wade and his wife Susan moved to Cedaredge about 30 years ago, and they had a tragedy in their family and it really drew them to Cedaredge and they established this primary care practice and really grew it from the ground up and have done a tremendous job over the last three decades of building that up and serving the people here in Cedaredge," said Cohee.
"We had conversations with the two of them starting in late July, August of last year, It it looked as if that Dr. Wade was ready to retire," Cohee noted. At that time the Wade's asked if Delta Health was interested in the practice.
Delta Health had avoided coming into the small community, however, they did operate a physical therapy office and lab.
"We didn't come in because Dr. Wade has taken great care of the community members here in Cedaredge. And so when the opportunity came available, we started the conversations and it really culminated into where we are today," said Cohee, "And it's just a culmination of 30 years of really hard work that the way to put into this clinic, they should be very proud of what they built here. And it's our job just to carry that legacy forward."
According to Cohee, Dr. Michelle Reed is coming over from adult primary care in Delta. and they plan to add a nurse practitioner soon.
" So we'll have the ability to have two providers here. The we have the ability to have four, four patient rooms to be able to see patients. So the hope is to be able to grow, continue to grow the practice and expand on what the way to built here," Cohee said.
In addition to the clinic, Delta Health has moved their lab drop station from their physical therapy building to the new location. "
" We had our former draw station was Monday and Wednesday from eight to noon. This drive station will be Monday through Friday from eight until, I believe the hours are 8 to 4,"Cohee said.
"So this is really the beginning of the expansion, gives us the ability to build that foundation and the expansion of our services here in Cedaredge to really make sure that we're delivering the care in Delta County that we need to where it needs to be delivered. So really important for us to have this foundation here."
