When Advantage Health Physician Network decided to move ahead with a $17M, 50,000-square-foot addition to its medical building at 245 Cherry St. SE, its
Weigh to Wellness program seized the opportunity to relocate from cramped offices at 1471 E. Beltline. This week, the program opened the doors to its 3,500-square-foot offices in Suite 104 of the original 245 Cherry building in Grand Rapids' Heartside neighborhood.
Weigh to Wellness is a medically supervised weight management program that helps patients lose weight and keep it off, says
Kimberly Turke, D.O., program administrator. She says that demand for the program and its growth to 14 full- and part-time staff members meant finding a larger, central location in order to serve patients better.
"We had a two- to three-month wait time before we could see a new patient," says Dr. Turke. "It takes people a long time to decide to pick up the phone and call us for help, and then to wait that long was unacceptable. We can now accommodate 12 new patients a week, where before we could only see five new patients a week. And we can plan for future growth."
Turke hopes that the new proximity to Saint Mary's Health Care, other downtown hospitals and to related medical specialties will enable Weigh to Wellness to expand its program offerings.
"We coordinate multi-disciplinary treatments, and though we don't do bariatric surgery, we refer patients to
Grand Health Partners' program when appropriate, and they refer patients to us," she says.
Turke says the new
Wealthy Street Farmers Market is an opportunity to connect patients with healthy foods, and a teaching kitchen at the
Wege Institute for Mind, Body and Spirit could be a prime location for healthy cooking classes that might be a future offering.
Source: Kimberly Turke, D.O., Advantage Health Physician Network Weigh to Wellness
Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor
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