Martin's Point Breaks Ground On New Facility At Pease International Tradeport

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire -- Martin's Point Health Care recently broke ground and began construction of a new 19,000-square-foot health care clinical facility at the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth. The modern, patient-focused building, which is modeled after the new Martin's Point facility in Brunswick, Maine, is scheduled for completion in January of 2001.

When completed, the health care center will feature three physicians and two physician assistants and offer primary care and specialty services. The facility, which is located at 161 Corporate Drive, will contain 20 exam rooms and four rooms for minor medical procedures and also will offer extended and convenient hours of operation, an onsite lab, x-ray and mammography services and a full service pharmacy. In addition, health education classes will be offered on topics such as diabetes and blood pressure management.

Martin's Point Health Care, which accepts patients under all major health plans as well as retired military and dependants of active military personnel, serves more than 44,000 patients a year at its four locations in Maine and New Hampshire. The current New Hampshire facility in Newington will close when the Pease health center opens, and the practices of physicians Cowan Stark, M.D., Steven Lutz, M.D., and Mark Ballentyne, M.D. will move to the new facility. With the move to the expanded facility, all three physicians and their physician assistants will be accepting new patients to their practices.

Designed by a team of Martin's Point health care professionals alongside the architects, the new facility's sensible design will have the comfort of patients in mind, focused on efficiency and patient flow.

"We're looking forward to being able to better serve our present patients, in addition to offering services to new patients with the expanded facility," said Dr. Jan Wnek, medical director for Martin's Point. "This will be a first-class facility with comfortable waiting areas, convenient parking and a customer-friendly design."

Ledgewood, Inc. of Portland is building the Pease health care center, which was designed by PDT Architects of Portland.

Martin's Point Health Care, established in 1981, is a non-profit health care provider with additional facilities in Portland, Brunswick and Windham, Maine.

Unique to Martin's Point and an integral part of the New Hampshire facility will be its new online communication program called Patients Personal Points. Introduced in Newington earlier this year, the free service allows Martin's Point patients to use their computers to communicate by a secure server with their doctors to schedule appointments, ask advice and obtain prescription refills. Patients Personal Points recently won a national technology award from the Healthcare Innovations in Technology Systems (HITS) "Partnership in Technology" national awards program.

With a staff of 290 health care professionals, Martin's Point serves patients in the areas of family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, radiology, cardiology, mammography and other fields. Martin's Point Health Care holds the contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide health care services for retired military personnel and the dependents of active duty personnel and accepts all major health plans and insurance, including but not limited to HealthSource, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Harvard Community Health Plan, NYLCare, Maine Partners, Champus and Tricare plans.

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