West Kendall Baptist Hospitals new Family Medicine Center is now open, providing area residents with high-quality primary and preventive care.West Kendall residents can now turn to the Baptist Health Medical Group Family Medicine Center for all routine care needs such as physical examinations, flu and allergy shots, non-emergency illnesses and injuries, chronic disease management and well-child visits. The opening of the Family Medicine Center is the next step toward our goal of creating a comprehensive health care community here, said Javier Hernndez-Lichtl, CEO ofWest Kendall Baptist Hospital. Residents already turn to us for inpatient care, surgeries, emergencies, and childbirth. Now we can serve their day-to-day care needs, as well.

Conveniently located on the first floor of the hospitals Medical Arts Building, the Family Medicine Center is designed to provide leading practices in education and compassionate care in a hightech and high-touch environment. The state-of-the-art facility includes six private exam rooms, an on-site laboratory, a group meeting room, a teleconference center and wireless computer tablets for patient registration. Current staff includes two physicians and a support team of medical assistants, patient representatives and care coordinators. More full-time physicians will join the center as the patient load increases. Beginning in 2013, four new physicians in training will join the staff each year for a three-year family medicine residency.

We invite West Kendall residents to call us to arrange a tour of our facility, said Dr. Agueda Hernndez, director of the Family Medicine Center. Our staff will be here to welcome you and assist in setting up your new care relationships and transferring records.

Dr. Hernndez and Dr. Manuel Torres, the staff physicians, have admitting privileges atWest Kendall Baptist Hospital as well as other facilities in the Baptist Health South Florida network. The Family Medicine Center will also function as the primary training ground for theWest Kendall Baptist Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program, which will launch in the summer of 2013 in affiliation with Florida International Universitys Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.

There is a critical shortage of primary care physicians across the country, and South Florida is no exception, said Dr. David Brown, chair of Family Medicine atWest Kendall Baptist Hospital and chief of Family Medicine at FIUs medical school. Our vision for the residency program is to attract and train highly skilled physicians, and then retain them to serve the community.

The Family Medicine Center is locate-d in the Medical Arts Building adjacent to West Kendall Baptist Hospital, 15955 SW 96th Street. The center accepts most major forms of health insurance, including Aetna, Florida Blue, United Health Plan, and Neighborhood Health as well as Medicare and Medicaid. For more information or to make an appointment, call 786-467-3140.

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Family Medicine Center Opens at West Kendall Baptist Hospital