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Athens’ new Nationwide Close To Home Center is open, with more programs to come

By: Theo Peck-Suzuki | Report for America
Posted on: Tuesday, October 29, 2024

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — Nationwide Children’s Hospital officially opened the doors of its Close To Home Center in Athens on Monday, marking the beginning of a major expansion in pediatric services for southeast Ohio residents.

The center is located on the second floor of 26 Hospital Drive at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital. Site director Carla Cooper said the only service available at the moment is speech therapy, but this will expand through February to include 10 “service lines” or treatment areas, such as cardiology and ENT (ear, nose and throat). Previously, getting a child to any of these specialists required going to Columbus, which is challenging for many families.

Depending on the program, parents can call directly for an appointment — what’s known as a self-referral — or get a referral from their child’s primary care doctor. Once at the clinic, there’s a good chance the specialist will call and speak with the family via telehealth. ENT nursing supervisor Brianna Manley said this will be the first site where Nationwide’s ENT program uses an in-person telehealth model.

“Right now, all of our patients are used to commuting for a lot of the care that they get, and we have patients that will come to Columbus and tell us, ‘Yeah, (we) just drove an hour and a half for this 10-minute appointment,’” Manley said. She said that will be a particularly big relief to parents of children with ear tubes.

The benefits of doing telehealth at the clinic (as opposed to at home) are that a nurse can be on-hand to help and spotty internet service isn’t an issue. Manley said she thinks the quality of care will not change because patients are seeing their doctors on a screen.

“We’re expecting the nurse on-site to be able to do ear exams, as well, which is something that we haven’t been able to do with telehealth in the past,” Manley said. “Their provider can still examine the inside of their ears, which is something you can’t necessarily do at home.”

Most Nationwide providers won’t be relocating to southeast Ohio for the clinic, but for one physician the new space is more convenient anyway. Speech language pathologist Cassie Myers lives in southeast Ohio and was previously commuting to Columbus to work.

“I’m very happy to be here,” she said with a laugh.

Myers said she plans to bring her own kids to the clinic.

“They’ll be going to ENT,” she said. “I think it’s really great for the community to have better access to care.”

The full list of planned services at the Close To Home Center are as follows: cardiology, ENT, gastroenterology, genetics, pulmonary, pediatric surgery clinic, urology, occupational, physical and speech therapy, the Center for Family Safety and Healing and the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition.