An expansion for the VA Medical Center in Crawford County is complete, and they're open for business.
The VA almost doubled the size of their Crawford facility, but you can't put a concrete value on the expanded services they now offer.
The 6,500 square foot building houses labs, exam rooms, and special telehealth rooms, where patients in Crawford County can connect with specialists at VA centers across the country.
Getting complete care no longer means traveling from specialist to specialist. Patients can hold video appointments with behavioral health care providers, dermatologists and eye doctors, right from their local clinic.
It's making overall care more convenient for local veterans.
"This allows easier specialty care type of services for patients," said Sarah Gudgeon of the VA Medical Center. "So instead of having to wait two months to see a dermatologist they can go into their Crawford clinic and be hooked up to see a specialty care provider from miles away."
Bringing more services right to Crawford County saves patients time.
"We have an e-range program, too, that provides intensive case management services to veterans there where they might've had to drive to Erie before," said Gudgeon.
As the VA Medical Center continues to grow, Crawford County in particular is an important place for investment, because of the number of veterans there.
"Our Crawford VA clinic that is actually the largest one out of all of the five community based clinics that we have," said Gudgeon, "so that is the largest facility with 2,800 patients, so we really want to make sure that this new clinic is ready for us to continue expanding."
The clinic will hold an open house for the public to showcase their new building on Saturday, October 27, at 10 a.m. The center is located at 16954 Conneaut Lake Road in Meadville.
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