Staffing issues, demand spur Erie urgent-care centers to change locations, shorten hours

Erie’s urgent-care centers do not require an appointment, but you might want to call ahead to make sure they are open.

Several of the centers, which provide treatment for non-life-threatening illnesses and injuries, have closed temporarily in the past 18 months or will close soon. Some have also shortened the number of hours they are open.

UPMC Urgent Care Erie closed its 7200 Peach St. location in August but will reopen it May 20 after the Pittsburgh-based health system closes its urgent-care center at 2861 W. 26th St. Saint Vincent Hospital reopened its AHN Express Care at Saint Vincent — East, 4950 Buffalo Road, in August after closing it in December 2022.

UPMC Urgent Care Erie will reopen at 7200 Peach St. on May 20 after closing at 2861 W. 26th St.

Representatives from both health systems said that staffing issues have been one reason for the closings and relocations. The COVID-19 pandemic also played a role.

“In the pandemic, we saw patient numbers decline in both the emergency department and the urgent-care centers,” said Lynn Rupp, UPMC Hamot’s vice president of physician networks. “They have been climbing back up recently, but not to where they were before the pandemic.”

Alternatives to waiting hours in an emergency department

The first urgent-care centers opened in the 1970s and there are now about 14,700 centers in the United States, according to the Chicago-based Urgent Care Association.

Health systems, like UPMC and Allegheny Health Network, promote their centers as an alternative to waiting hours in their emergency departments with minor illnesses and injuries.

But now there are other alternatives, said Dr. Dhimitri Nikolla, a Saint Vincent emergency medicine physician and member of the Pennsylvania College of Emergency Physicians.

“Emergency department crowding and prolonged length of stays for ED patients may be deterring patients from presenting to EDs,” Nikolla said in an email. “This may be driving patients to seek unscheduled care for acute complaints from other locations/sources (ie, telemedicine, same-day appointments at primary-care physician offices), resulting in urgent-care closures.”

UPMC Hamot has seen its number of telemedicine visits increase from just 10 to 20 visits a year regionwide before the pandemic to around 17% of all current patient visits, Rupp said.

“We also have same-day appointments available in all of our primary-care offices and are working on setting up walk-in visits,” Rupp said. “We believe those have impacted our urgent-care numbers.”

Patient demand, not staffing issues, spark UPMC urgent-care center move

It’s patient numbers, not staffing issues, that led to UPMC Hamot choosing to close its urgent-care center on West 26th Street when its lease expires May 19.

UPMC Urgent Care Erie will reopen the next day at 7200 Peach St., which was used as a primary-care office for a short period of time after it closed as an urgent-care center.

“Initially the decision to go to one urgent-care center was a combination of staffing and demand,” Rupp said. “Our staffing has leveled off, but we feel we can handle the demand with just one location, although we have the space to add more exam rooms if needed.”

AHN Express Care at Saint Vincent — East has reopened, but it still isn’t open as many hours as it was before the pandemic.

“Volume decreases seen during the pandemic at the Express Care at AHN West have normalized and are actually slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels,” said Dr. Allan C Johnson Jr., Saint Vincent’s medical director for ambulatory clinical informatics. “The struggle, as with all areas of healthcare, is still with staffing.”