Lake Ridge, Va. — Lake Ridge is the neighborhood next in line for a 24-hour emergency medical center.
Sentara Health Care announced the new center should open early next year at the intersection of Minnieville and Summit School roads, and will offer physician, advanced imaging and laboratory services.
When finished, the new 43,500 square foot facility will ease the patient load at Potomac Hospital, which was designed to accommodate 40,000 patients per year but is now seeing about 60,000 per year, according to Sentara spokeswoman Charlene Wilkins.
While the medical center will be staffed with board-certified physicians, Wilkins says patients who will be seen at the Lake Ridge center may still be taken at doctor’s orders to Potomac Hospital in Woodbridge in serious cases.
Sentara chose to build the new center in Lake Ridge because the U.S. Census Bureau estimates population is expected to grow there by 9.6 percent over the next five years to 206,772, said Wilkins.
