Barnes-Jewish Hospital will open its new outpatient center on Monday.
The 12-story building at the corner of Forest Park Avenue and Euclid will bring together five existing outpatient clinics under one roof. Those include a primary care clinic, along with OB/GYN, psychiatric, surgical, and specialty clinics.
Dr. Melvin Blanchard directs the internal medicine residency program at Barnes.
Speaking at a dedication ceremony for the new center, Blanchard said Barnes' existing clinics provide care to the underinsured and underserved.
"We're increasingly seeing refugees, so we're seeing Bosnians, Ukrainians, Middle Easterners, Africans, in addition to a large concentration or proportion of African Americans and a small proportion of white Americans," Blanchard said.
Blanchard said clinic patients range in age from 18 to over 100 years old, and that some have been coming to the Barnes clinics for decades.
At the dedication ceremony, the president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Rich Liekweg, said the new center will help the hospital meet the increasing demand for outpatient services.
"We also have an educational mission here at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in partnership with Washington University," Liekweg said. "So these clinics will also be the venue in which many of our residents will be able to practice and provide continuity of care to the patients that they follow as well."
In addition to the clinics, the building will house administrative offices for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Children's Hospital, and BJC Healthcare.
Construction of the facility began in 2009 and cost close to $100 million.
