O'Fallon Resident Discusses Growth of Urgent Care Centers on KMOV

Are urgent care centers the wave of the future?

You’d surely think so by looking at the St. Louis region. SSM Health Care is spending $600,000 on two new facilities. One opened in August, the other plans to open its doors in September. That’s in addition to more than 20 centers in and around the St. Louis area.

Dawn Lee Garzon, teaching professor at the College of Nursing at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, talked to KMOV (Channel 4) about the growing trend.

“Urgent cares can be there when your primary caretaker cannot be there,” said the O'Fallon, Mo. resident.  “We’ve realized in the last decade that a lot of things people used to go to emergency rooms for – coughs, colds, minor cuts, bruises and sprains – don’t need to be treated in emergency rooms.”