WestHealth in Plymouth

Photo: Marshall Franklin Long

Nestled in the busy crossroads of Highway 55 and Interstate 494, the building with the swooshy logo is a familiar site to Plymouth residents and commuters alike. Even so, many who pass it every day wonder the same thing: What exactly is WestHealth?

“In 2008, we initiated a branding process in which we asked the question, ‘Who are we?’” says Jeffry Roseland, director of administrative services for WestHealth. “What we gleaned from talking to community members is that we are either an insurance company or an office building”—wrong on both counts. 

WestHealth is a medical Mecca, what Roseland calls “a one-stop shop” for outpatient medical care. The 180,000-square-foot fortress of health contains an urgent care clinic, same-day surgery center and more than 50 medical clinics in a variety of specialties, from allergy care to urology.  It also boasts imaging services such as MRIs and mammograms, an on-site laboratory where anyone can have  tests performed with a physician’s order, a pharmacy and a café.

Turns out, WestHealth might just be the most useful building you’ve never visited.

But even if you are a regular patient there—one of the 7,000 people who have a surgical procedure performed at WestHealth each year, the 16,000 women who have an imaging test done there annually or the 85 patients seen daily in the Urgent Care clinic—there’s a lot you might not know about the facility.

Growing to Serve

Plans for WestHealth began in 1992 as a partnership between Abbot Northwestern Hospital and North Memorial Medical Center. The 38-acre campus opened to patients in 1994; just four years later, responding to public demand, a four-story, 78,000-square-foot addition was built.

WestHealth runs the seven-days-a-week urgent care, an ExpressCare clinic for patients with minor issues like pink eye and urinary tract infections, the Imaging and Women’s Imaging centers, the surgery center and the lab, while renting out space to clinics and physicians who act as tenants.

Like everyone else, WestHealth was hit by the 2008 recession; at the time, a good portion of its business was plastic surgery patients, and when the economy got rough, fewer people opted for elective surgery. However, WestHealth still performs the most plastic surgeries of any facility in a five-state area. Even more impressive, the building currently boasts a meager 1 percent vacancy rate for providers who rent space.

In late April, Abbot Northwestern (owned by Allina) quietly bought out North Memorial’s share and is now the sole owner of WestHealth. Allina public relations manager Gloria O’Connell says patients shouldn’t notice an interruption or change in services. 

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