St. Joseph’s/Candler opening medical center at new Hyundai Metaplant
BRYAN COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - On-site medical care is on the way for Hyundai workers when the electric vehicle plant opens in north Bryan County next fall.
St. Joseph’s/Candler announced they will build a medical facility in the middle of the mega site dedicated to Hyundai employees.
It will be about 7,700 square feet with one doctor and 25 employees.
“It’s absolutely seamless,” St. Joseph’s/Candler CEO Paul Hinchey said.
Hinchey says they’ve had this idea in mind for years. In fact, they already have a clinic serving construction workers. As for this new facility..
“It provides all the primary care, all the occupational medicine for it. It has a pharmacy. It has an x-ray unit,” Hinchey said.
The doctor who will run the center is coming from the National Institutes of Health.
“He specializes in workman’s comp injuries. He specializes in reviewing policy and procedure.”
The facility is already fully staffed with nurse practitioners, assistants, physical therapists and more professionals.
The Hyundai plant is set to open fall 2024. The medical center will first open in May of 2024 on weekdays for eight hours.
“To do all of our mock drills, all three shifts, the what ifs, things like that.”
Hinchey hopes it will be open 24 hours, 5 days a week and partially on the weekends at the beginning of 2025. He says staff will work three shifts a day.
He says this is the first model of its kind in the country.
Manufacturing plants typically use outside vendors for health care, according to Hinchey.
“Healthcare can be fragmented enough.”
St. Joseph’s Candler also plans to open a 10,000 square foot medical office across from the EV plant to care for families and partners of the project.
He says he hopes to inspire other companies.
“I’ve got a feeling it’s probably going to become more of a model in manufacturing. You can’t have the baton dropped in healthcare. You waste time. If you waste time, the safety is not as good.”
The Hyundai EV Plant is expected to bring more than 8,000 jobs to our area.
It will provide:
• Primary Care services
• Occupational Health services
• Work injury Care services
• Pharmacy Dispensary
• New employee health check-ups
• Physical therapy
• Injury surveillance testing (hearing, vision, pulmonary function, etc.)
• Injury prevention and wellness management
• Chronic disease management
• Diagnostics such as X-ray and EKG
• Drug screening and other lab testing
• Plus other services as needed
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