Area healthcare providers join to improve outpatient care
Pinnacle Sports Medicine & Orthopaedics, a Hutchinson-based healthcare provider specializing in quality orthopaedic care, joins Newton Medical Center to offer physical and occupational therapy in Newton.
Pinnacle Sports Medicine & Orthopaedics will lease the space on the second floor of the Newton Surgery Center building now occupied by Rehabilitation Services at NMC.
Leaders of both organizations assure Newton physicians and outpatients that the same physical and occupational services will be offered. Each of the current NMC physical and occupational therapists will be provided an opportunity to work for Pinnacle, in what administrators say will be a seamless transition.
This agreement has no effect on the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit or Speech Therapy at NMC.
“Our agreement with Pinnacle ensures a higher degree of consistency in delivery of outpatient physical and occupational treatment,” said Steve Kelly, president and CEO of Newton Medical Center.
As an example of this increased continuity between patient and physician, Gordon Funk, President and CEO of Pinnacle Sports Medicine & Orthopaedics, points to Charles Craig, M.D., a well-known and highly respected Newton orthopaedic surgeon, aligning his Axtell Orthopedics practice with Pinnacle at the first of 2009. Dr. Craig continues his surgical practice in Newton and surrounding communities. Physicians on staff at Pinnacle may begin to perform procedures in Newton, also.
Those physicians include Jonathon J. Loewen, M.D., a native of Hillsboro, Erik L. Severud, M.D. and Thomas W. Phillips, M.D.
Jennifer Koontz, M.D., of Newton will join the practice upon completion of her medical residency at Via Christi-St. Francis in Wichita.
“Our mission is to provide quality orthopaedic care in a comfortable, caring atmosphere; serving each patient’s medical needs,” Funk said.
“Newton Medical Center’s mission is to excel in providing healthcare by understanding and responding to the individual needs of those we serve,” Kelly said. “Both of our organizations place paramount importance on the needs of each individual patient.”
Pinnacle Sports Medicine and Orthopaedics is located at 1818 E. 23rd Ave. in Hutchinson. The phone number is (620) 662-6000.