Phoenix Children’s opens specialty clinic at Avondale campus

PHONEIX — Phoenix Children’s expanded its Avondale campus with a multi-specialty clinic that opened Monday.

The development allows for increased medical providers onsite, more visitation availability and two-and-a-half times more patient rooms.

Population growth in the West Valley over the past decade led to the need for an updated facility, Chief Operating Officer of Phoenix Children’s Medical Group Jared Muenzer told KTAR News 92.3 FM.

“Historically in Avondale, we had a smaller building that was our specialty clinic during the day and then in the evening and the weekend would be a pediatric-specific urgent care,” Muenzer said.

“We knew given that massive growth in the families we serve … that it was time to grow. And so we have built a new 70,000-square-foot building that takes us from having 27 rooms in the old facility to now 68 rooms across two floors of that building and then the potential to expand with a third floor in the future as growth allows.”

The specialty clinic includes a therapy and rehab facility on the first floor that will assist in physical, occupational and speech therapy. The Avondale campus is also equipped for subspecialties including allergy and immunology, cardiology, dermatology, general surgery, neurology, orthopedics, pain management, psychiatry, psychology and sports medicine.

“It really will be a comprehensive place for patients to see their providers on an outpatient basis,” Muenzer said.

More growth is coming for the facility. A freestanding emergency department will open for children suffering serious or life-threatening illnesses or injuries in late 2023.

“That facility over the coming months will turn from a pediatric urgent care into a freestanding emergency department, and that really is about how that population has grown in the West Valley,” Muenzer said.

“There are patients out there with a level of illness and, unfortunately, a level of trauma that really need free standing emergency department care. And so that facility is being updated and grown.”

Phoenix Children’s leadership, clinicians and staff, along with city officials, attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday at the Avondale campus.