Nemours plans specialty- and primary-care location in Winter Garden

WINTER GARDEN  Nemours Children’s Hospital opened in Lake Nona five years ago, but Winter Garden residents soon will have access to many of its resources right in their own backyard.

Construction has been underway for a new Nemours Specialty and Primary Care site in Winter Garden since October, and the facility should be ready to receive patients by late spring.

The 12,000-square-foot medical facility is being built at Sonata West off Daniels Road and is set to offer a multitude of services, along with 24 fully equipped medical exam rooms for patients. The goal of Nemours’s expansion into Winter Garden is to bring pediatric expertise closer to where families live, said Martha McGill, chief of network operations for Nemours Florida and enterprise vice president for Nemours Children’s Health System. 

“We chose this location, because when we did our environment scan, it was apparent to us there was a big demand for pediatric subspecialty care in Winter Garden, and we didn’t have a presence there,” McGill said. “This new location will help us deliver that team approach to a child’s care by providing a broad range of specialties under one roof and making it as convenient as possible for our families.”

Nemours also has 11 specialty-care locations, 16 primary-care and six urgent-care locations across Central Florida. 

Winter Garden’s Nemours primary care will have a board-certified pediatrician able to provide routine well and sick visits, immunizations and more to children ages newborn to 18. Additionally, specially trained pediatric care teams can diagnose and treat both common and complex conditions.

Subspecialties offered include: audiology, cardiology, gastroenterology, general surgery, opthalmology, orthopedics and sports medicine, otolaryngology and pulmonology.

“We welcome Nemours to Winter Garden,” said Winter Garden Mayor John Rees. “It is a great addition for our families and the West Orange community to receive services in their own backyard.”

And with 24 exam rooms, there’s still room for more subspecialties to be added as needed, McGill said.

“(Because) we’re building these exam rooms, if there’s any other pediatric specialty needed in this market, we have an opportunity to add those specialties,” McGill said. “Our doctors move from site to site to met the greater needs of the children that we serve.”

In addition to its Central Florida facilities, Nemours also offers CareConnect, an on-demand pediatric tele-health program, which allows families access to pediatricians through a smartphone, tablet or computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We are excited to have Nemours Children’s Health System on the campus of Sonata West, a resort-style independent and assisted-living community,” said Stuart Beebe, president and CEO of Sonata Senior Living. “Nemours Health System will improve access to many pediatric services for families in West Orange.”

Construction is set to be complete in April, McGill said, and doctors will begin to see patients in the new facility no later than June.

“Certainly, they’ll be embraced by our warm ambiance of the pediatric providers (who are) trained to care only for children,” McGill said. “Nemours operates on a family-centered care model, and I would even go a step further and say it’s family-driven care. We embrace the entire family.”