Bellin Health is building a new clinic tailored to kids and teens, with specialists from Children's Wisconsin on-site
GREEN BAY - Bellin Health plans to build a new clinic for children and teens that will combine primary and specialty care and offer a more welcoming environment for patients in those age groups, the organization announced Tuesday.
Construction of the new clinic, on Ashland Avenue south of State 172 in Ashwaubenon, is expected to begin in December. The clinic is expected to open in early 2024, according to a news release.
Bellin primary care providers and specialists will staff the clinic alongside specialists from Children's Wisconsin. The project is part of a partnership that the two health systems and ThedaCare debuted late last year to expand access to pediatric services in northeast Wisconsin.
The health system will maintain all of its existing pediatric clinics but will hire some new providers for the new one, said Bellin vice president Amy Dettman. The goal of the new facility is to bridge regular care and specialty services, like cardiac care and psychiatry, in one building, so that families don't have to travel out of the area for more advanced care.
Bellin staff examined their current facilities for kids and teens and decided they could do better by bringing services for younger patients together in one building, Dettman said.
The clinic will also house the Bellin Health Adolescent Team, which is launching June 1 in one of the health system's existing facilities in De Pere and serving patients ages 11 to 21.
RELATED: Children's Wisconsin will expand in 2023 with a new Appleton clinic offering pediatric labs, imaging
Building a new facility will allow the partners to tailor it to the needs of that age group, said Bellin pediatrician Dr. Sherri Hoyman.
Adolescence is a time of physical, mental, sexual and social change, and that makes it hard for kids to open up in areas they don't feel comfortable, she said.
"To enter certain clinics where they feel like, 'There's babies crying, I don't really fit here,' or, 'There's a bunch of elderly people who are staring at me as I walk in because I have piercings on my face' ... or they're walking into a gynecology clinic to get some extra help there and they feel that judgment happening in the waiting room ... we don't want that," Hoyman said. "We want them to feel like this is a space for them, and we accept them no matter what."
Hoyman said Bellin staff visited Children's in Milwaukee and Shriners Children's in the Twin Cities to get a feel for what environments work best for these types of clinics.
Bellin also participated in a grant program through the University of Michigan to help it better understand the standards for adolescent clinics. The program helped educate thier staff on acceptance, diversity and communication skills and stressed the importance of confidentiality throughout a patient's experience at the clinic, Hoyman said.
A clinic's complete list of services will be released closer to its opening, according to the news release, but the site will support services like labs and x-rays.
Dr. Matt Buelow, a pediatric specialist at Children's Wisconsin, said having primary and specialty services in one building will be a "tremendous asset."
"This is a really unique design; it's a unique model," Buelow said. "It's going to be a game-changer in terms of the patient experience."
Bellin will own and operate the clinic, according to the news release. Leaders on Tuesday did not yet have an estimate for the cost of the project.
This is the second building project the health system has announced in recent months: Last November, leaders announced plans to build an ambulatory surgery center at the former Menards site off Waube Lane.
Though the broader pediatric partnership includes ThedaCare, that health system will not be involved in the Ashwaubenon project, Dettman said. It will continue to serve younger patients in its current Fox Cities markets.
Children's Wisconsin has an existing hospital near ThedaCare's Neenah hospital and is also building a clinic on Appleton's northeast side set to open in 2023.
Contact reporter Madeline Heim at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @madeline_heim.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Bellin Health, Children's Wisconsin to build clinic for kids, teens
