New ED will be first for MultiCare in Yakima County
YAKIMA, Wash. — MultiCare Health System broke ground today on a new 10,000-square-foot neighborhood emergency department in Union Gap.
The new facility, at Adelyn Way and Valley Mall Boulevard, will address the needs of the community and bolster access to emergency care. MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital has one of the busiest emergency departments in the state. Last year, the hospital treated nearly 87,000 emergency room patients.
MultiCare Emergency – Union Gap will feature 10 rooms and on-site radiology services, including X-ray, ultrasound, and CT scans. The neighborhood emergency department will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It will be staffed by board-certified emergency physicians.
“Demand for emergency services in our community has outpaced Yakima Memorial’s capacity to effectively serve the many, many patients who come to our emergency department for care,” said Tammy Buyok, president of MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital. “This new neighborhood emergency department will enhance our community’s access to high-quality health care services and address the increasing health care needs in the valley.”
Neighborhood emergency departments are designed to provide prompt, comprehensive care for a wide range of illnesses and injuries. Patients can be seen, treated and discharged in far less time than at a traditional hospital. Additionally, the facility will benefit from access to MultiCare’s large network of specialists and support services.
The Union Gap facility will operate under Yakima Memorial’s license. Projected opening of the new emergency department is late 2025.
This will be MultiCare’s seventh neighborhood emergency department in Washington state through a partnership with Texas-based Emerus Holdings, Inc. Emerus is a leader in developing and operating small-format hospitals and acute-care facilities. The contractor on this project is Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty company, an industry-leading provider of general contracting, at-risk construction management and design-build services for public and private sector clients across the United States.
MultiCare opened neighborhood emergency departments in Parkland and Bonney Lake in 2019, South Hill in 2020, Federal Way in 2021 and Lacey in 2023. In addition, there are plans to open facilities in Bremerton and Lynwood in 2025.
