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Catholic Health has opened a new 15,600-square-foot ambulatory care center in...

Catholic Health has opened a new 15,600-square-foot ambulatory care center in Riverhead. Credit: Randee Daddona

Catholic Health, the Rockville Centre-based health system, says it is following patients out east and opening a $7.2 million, 15,600-square-foot ambulatory care center in Riverhead.

Catholic Health leaders gathered Wednesday to cut a ribbon on the two-story facility at 800 Old Country Rd. Catholic Health Ambulatory Care at Riverhead will be equipped to perform X-rays, stress tests and echocardiograms or medical imaging of the heart, according to Christine Flaherty, senior vice president for facilities and real estate. 

The facility has begun to see patients. It has 30 patient rooms, where Catholic Health expects “several thousand” patients a year to seek primary care and assistance from specialists in neurosurgery, spinal conditions, pediatric orthopedics, pain management, podiatry, urology and cardiology. 

About 30 employees work at the new center and Catholic Health hopes to expand the team. The organization wants to serve patients who have long lived in the area, as well as Nassau residents and others who regularly travel to or retire near the Hamptons and North Fork, Flaherty said. Several other health care systems, including Stony Brook Medicine, Northwell Health and NYU Langone, have also undertaken expansions on the east end.

“There continues to be more individuals deciding to retire out east, so you do look at the population growth and the needs of the population,” Flaherty said. “We wanted to ensure that even our current patients that might have been Nassau County-based, that are going to Suffolk County, that we can continue providing that care on their journey.” 

Catholic Health built the Riverhead hub with an $8 million transformation grant from the state. About $800,000 remains, which the health system plans to use for a new urgent care center in the Ronkonkoma area, Flaherty said. 

“The transformation grant was applied for through St. Charles Hospital, which is really the receiver facility from a clinical perspective for our patients here that would be seeing a doctor and provider in Riverhead,” Flaherty said. “By building an integrated ambulatory care center here, we really can help provide those ongoing annual appointments and screenings and prescriptions … to try to prevent any major event that could land them in one of our emergency rooms.”

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