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TICONDEROGA — A new era of rural health care in southern Essex County was ushered in Tuesday as the new $7.6 million Ticonderoga Health Center within UVM Health Network-Elizabethtown Community Hospital’s Ticonderoga Campus officially opened.

State Sen. Betty Little and Assemblyman Dan Stec, both Republicans from Queensbury, were on hand to offer remarks at a ceremony turning the new facility over to Hudson Headwaters Health Network of Glens Falls.

The place will see its first patients on Sept. 14.

Little said she was surprised when Elizabethtown Community Hospital President John Remillard said the large conference room at the complex will be named for her.

The senator was instrumental in getting the State Department of Health to back the construction of the Health Center with a $6 million state grant.

“Will it be called ‘the Little Conference Room?’” she joked. “I was just doing my job (in helping the facility). It’s (comprehensive health care) all here, all in one place on this campus.”

She said she was pleased the new facility is wired for telemedicine, since that’s the direction healthcare has taken since the pandemic began.

The space will officially be the “Senator Betty Little Conference Room” and a plaque with that designation affixed to the wall outside.

Remillard said the new Health Center marks the establishment of a primary care practice at their Ticonderoga Campus.

“The Board of Directors of the former Moses-Ludington Hospital made a bold and courageous decision for a new model for rural health care,” he said. “That started a two-year planning process.”

The result was a hospital turned over to Elizabethtown Community Hospital, $9.1 million in renovations chiefly funded by the state, and primary care as a centerpiece with another $5.6 million in state grants.

“That brings us to today and Hudson Headwaters,” he said.

Hudson Headwaters’ CEO Dr. Tucker Slingerland said it’s all a partnership between UVM Health Network, Elizabethtown Community Hospital, and Hudson Headwaters Health Network.

“This building is state of the art, with telemedicine visits from any exam room,” he said. “It’s really a team effort that enables us to provide care.”

The Ticonderoga Health Center had been operated from a smaller facility on Racetrack Road since 1992. They currently handle 1,400 patient visits a month.

Hudson Headwaters’ Ticonderoga Health Center has 10,300 square feet of space and 14 primary care exam rooms, along with a procedure room, private consultation space and on-site testing space.

Its 15 providers offer pediatric and adult primary care, podiatry, and women’s health services, along with a full nursing and support staff, integrated behavioral health and social-work support teams.

The new location allows Ticonderoga Health Center patients to easily access Elizabethtown Community Hospital’s emergency department, X-ray, CT, ultrasound and MRI suite, outpatient rehabilitation space and specialty clinics, all within the same building.

Stec said he and Little worked to bring about the new Health Center and rebuilt hospital. The work represented the first major renovations since the former Moses-Ludington Hospital moved to the building in 1981.

“We pushed where we need to get,” Stec said. “That’s what public service is supposed to be about.”

The Health Center project was funded by a $5.6 million grant from New York’s Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Program, along with a $1 million contribution from Hudson Headwaters Health Network and $1 million from University of Vermont Health Network. PC Construction of South Burlington and Luck Builders of Plattsburgh were the primary contractors for the work.

“It (the combined facility) has a very bright future,” Slingerland concluded. “I’m excited for what will be accomplished here.”



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