Abrazo plans to open ‘microhospital’ in Cave Creek next year

PHOENIX – A Phoenix-based health care network is planning to open its first North Valley “microhospital.”

Construction on a neighborhood hospital at Carefree Highway and 53nd Street in Cave Creek is set to begin, Abrazo Health announced Wednesday.

The 35,000-square-foot Abrazo Cave Creek Hospital will focus on emergency care when it opens in 2021, creating around 50 jobs.

It will be the third microhospital in Abrazo’s network. The first debuted last year in Mesa, and a Surprise location is scheduled to open this year.

Like the Mesa and Surprise facilities, Cave Creek will provide surgical procedures and around-the-clock emergency room service.

Abrazo said its microhospitals are designed to be convenient, efficient options for patients with ailments requiring treatment beyond what urgent care centers provide.

“Emergency care and operations like appendectomies and gall bladder procedures, for example, can be performed in the neighborhood hospital setting,” Abrazo executive Ed Staren said in a press release.

Cave Creek will have a 13-bed emergency department and eight rooms for overnight patients, plus X-ray, ultrasound and CT scan equipment.

“We want our ER waiting times to be among the shortest they can possibly be,” Staren said.

Abrazo’s metro Phoenix network also includes acute care hospitals, freestanding emergency centers, urgent care centers and physician practices.

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