Bassett adding new care facility in Cobleskill

PHOTOGRAPHER: Edward Munger Jr.

The Cooperstown-based Bassett Healthcare Network will double the size of its primary care facility in Cobleskill with a new building on the campus of its affiliated Cobleskill Regional Hospital.

Hospital and government officials gathered at the Cobleskill hospital last week for a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new 20,000-square-foot primary care facility.

Once the facility is built, Bassett Healthcare will relocate 12 physicians and advanced-practice clinicians from the current primary care center on Legion Drive in the village, which is only 9,469 square feet.

The additional space will provide enough room for four additional physicians as well as more nursing and office staff.

Primary care visits in Schoharie County grew from 16,500 in the late 1980s to more than 30,000 today, Bassett Healthcare CEO William F. Streck said in a news release.

“This latest project to move primary care onto this campus is a natural progression of the relationship we enjoy with Cobleskill Regional Hospital,” he said.

According to Cobleskill Regional Hospital spokeswoman Joanne Gleba, the village hospital served 11,173 patients in its emergency room last year.

The hospital logged another 23,780 visits to speciality physician clinics, 521 acute inpatient discharges and 225 inpatient, short-term rehabilitation program discharges that year, according to Gleba.

Dr. Joseph Sellers, the center’s medical director, said in the release that 94 percent of the facility’s 30,000-plus patients originate from Schoharie County, the rest from neighboring counties.

“We’ll soon be able to meet the needs of more patients in a spacious, modern facility. I’m also excited about the progressive design of the new building, which is intended to foster improved care coordination and consistency of care,” he said in the statement.

Bassett Healthcare spokeswoman Karen Huxtable-Hooker said in an email Tuesday that the Cobleskill hospital’s affiliation with Bassett gives patients access to the Cooperstown-based health care system’s doctors.

“Locating the new health center on the Cobleskill hospital campus will make it easier for Bassett’s patients who need to get X-rays or lab work done or access our specialty services there,” she said.

A HEAL NY grant of $5 million is supporting the bulk of the cost of the new facility, estimated at $6 million. It’s scheduled for completion in early 2014.