Outpatient center to open Monday

McMURRAY – The $20 million St. Clair Hospital Outpatient Center in Peters Township will open its doors Monday to provide a wide range of services, ranging from a diagnostic center on the first floor of the 40,000-square-foot, all-green building, to a variety of specialities by physicians on the second floor.
An open house was held Wednesday at the building at 3928 Washington Road, across from the Donaldsons Crossroads shopping center.
Planning for the outpatient center began about seven years ago, James Collins, president and chief executive officer, said of the idea to expand hospital services beyond the main health care complex on Bower Hill Road in Mt. Lebanon. Property where the new outpatient center sits was acquired more than three years ago.
The idea to locate the center in Peters Township was, in part, because the hospital has seen a 40 percent increase in the number of patients from the township and surrounding areas in the past five years.
The center is designed to permit patients to see multiple physicians in one day with the availability of X-rays or laboratory tests, all in the same building.
Washington County Commissioner Diana Irey Vaughn said locating the center in Washington County will be an asset to the already rapidly expanding population and job market that includes Marcellus Shale drilling and related industries, along with The Meadow Racetrack & Casino.
Jack Piatt, chairman of Millcraft Investments, standing a few feet from the Piatt Diagnostic Center, said the center has great access for Washington County.
About 1,000 local business owners, neighbors of the center, elected officials and hospital staff were invited to the two-hour open house to view the environmentally friendly building. There is no mechanical equipment on the roof with all equipment ground-mounted behind the building along with 180 free parking spaces. There is a portico where patients may be dropped off out of the weather.
The center is open Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and from 7 a.m. until noon on Saturdays.