We were thrilled to celebrate the grand opening (complete with a ribbon cutting ceremony) for Pinnacle Urgent Care’s NEW Burlington, NC location last month. Since officially opening our doors on July 14, we’ve already had the privilege of caring for many members of the community.
In this Q&A with Dr. Matt Blanchard, we’re digging into why Burlington was the perfect location for the second Pinnacle Urgent Care office:
Q: Why did it make sense for Pinnacle to expand into the Burlington market?
A: After working with a location consultant, we were excited to identify a city with a rapidly growing population. After reviewing the data further, it seemed there were not enough urgent cares for the population. Identifying that there were franchise urgent cares and big hospital urgent cares did not worry us, as we are confident our small, family-run urgent care would give the type of clinical experiences that will make our patients want to keep coming back for their medical care.
Q: How will you both be splitting your time between the two locations?
A: For the foreseeable future, I will be spending a majority of my time here in Burlington. It is very important to my wife and me that this clinic starts with a foundation that is consistent with our values and model for the type of urgent care experience we envision. We want to ensure our new staff understands the culture we want to build and that we are able to not just see and treat patients but establish relationships with the families we may see several times a year.
Q: Please share a bit about the care team in Burlington.
A: The two clinicians splitting the month are Kelly Flynt and me. Both Kelly and I each bring over a decade of experience in urgent care settings. We are comfortable with a wide range of medical issues, including fever/ sick visits, fracture care, acute wound care, stomach bugs, urinary issues, headaches and many other issues. We were so excited to bring one of our veteran nurses, Jazmine Benton, from our Lexington location with us to Burlington as well. We hired a new receptionist, Rebecca Watts, that we found out in the interview grew up two hours from our hometown in Louisiana. She brings a warm, smiling personality to the front desk that we have no doubt will give our patients a great first experience while checking in.
Q: Please share a bit about the space. How is it different from Lexington? What are you most excited about regarding the building/office?
A: Our designers, architects, and construction team did an amazing job with the space. The biggest key difference is the size. We designed our Lexington clinic with enough space/exam rooms to see 85-90 patients. Never in our business plan did we imagine we would grow to the size where we would see well over 120 patients during a busy winter day! Our newest location in Burlington was designed with two extra exam rooms and a nurse station big enough to accommodate a third clinician and an extra nurse. We still have the same large treatment room for fractures, lacerations, as well as various other procedures, an X-ray suite for taking in house X-rays, and a lab equipped with some of the most accurate flu and covid machines on the market.
Q: What do you feel like you offer as a small, family-owned clinic that sets you apart from larger urgent care centers?
A: It was important to my wife and me that we only open a number of urgent cares that we personally had the time to manage and oversee. We still interview every employee, which allows us to establish what our culture and our expectations are for every new hire from the beginning. When hiring our clinicians, we always wait for the right applicant. Once we have identified a few applicants that have strong resumes, both my wife and I go through a lengthy interview process. We want to ensure every clinician we hire to treat patients at our clinic has sufficient training/experience in the field, as well as the kind of medical knowledge that means we would trust them to treat our own kids. As long as we continue to strive to treat every patient like family and provide top-notch medical care, our patients will have a great experience in our clinic and continue to come back. We also believe even the small things can make a big difference in a patient’s overall experience. For example, my wife and I always hate when we call another business and either they don’t answer or it takes days or weeks to get in touch with the right person. At Pinnacle, if the team at the clinic is too busy to answer or is on the phone with another patient, the call will roll through to our personal cell phones to ensure someone always answers every call. That is important to us.