SARANAC LAKE - Adirondack Health administrators and doctors spoke openly for the first time Thursday about their plan to convert the 24-hour-a-day emergency department at Adirondack Medical Center-Lake Placid into a 12-hour urgent care clinic.

During a 90-minute interview with the Enterprise, Adirondack Health President and CEO Chandler Ralph, Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Broderick and Emergency Department Medical Director Dr. Anthony Dowidowicz said the proposal makes sense from both a medical and a financial standpoint.

They said their Lake Placid ER doesn't have CT scan machines and other modern medical technology, and that most seriously ill patients already bypass it and are taken to the more state-of-the-art emergency department 10 miles away at AMC-Saranac Lake. They also say the low volume of patients at the Lake Placid ER doesn't justify keeping it open around the clock, and that converting it to an urgent care facility would still provide a valuable service to the community while saving the hospital an estimated $1 million.

Dr. John Broderick, right, Adirondack Healths chief medical officer, talks about the proposed conversion of the Adirondack Medical Center-Lake Placid emergency room to an urgent care center Thursday at AMC-Saranac Lake as the organizations communications director, Joe Riccio, listens. (Enterprise photo Chris Knight)

Dowidowicz said health care reform is pushing organizations like Adirondack Health to use its resources more efficiently.

"There are a lot of silos in medicine that are these hard and concrete structures that people cling onto that really don't fit with change," he said. "A lot of people don't want to give up what they've held onto for a long time. In order to survive in the future with the way things are going, you need to adapt."

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By the #s

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Visits to the emergency room at AMC-Lake Placid

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Health care in transition