VHC Health's New Falls Church Emergency, Urgent Care Center Takes Shape

FALLS CHURCH, VA — Construction is moving ahead on a new VHC Health facility near Falls Church that will combine emergency and urgent care under one roof, an approach hospital officials say will expand access to care while taking pressure off VHC Health’s Arlington emergency department.

VHC Health and its partners recently marked the construction milestone with a beam-signing ceremony at the approximately 24,000-square-foot facility at 7234 Arlington Blvd., near Graham Road. Community members joined hospital officials and project partners for the ceremony.

The project, a partnership between VHC Health and Intuitive Health, will be the health system’s first facility combining a freestanding emergency department with urgent care, according to Adrian Stanton, VHC Health vice president in charge of real estate development.

“This is our first of what we hope are several of these combination freestanding emergency department and urgent care facilities,” Stanton told Patch.

New Model Designed To Take Guesswork Out Of Seeking Care

While urgent care centers and freestanding emergency departments already exist, Stanton said combining the two services at a single location is new to the region.

Intuitive Health has developed the model in other parts of the country, while VHC Health will provide the clinical expertise and emergency and urgent care services at the Falls Church location.

One goal is to eliminate a common dilemma for patients who are sick or injured but don't know whether their condition requires an emergency room or urgent care.

Patients will enter through a single point of entry and be assessed to determine the appropriate level of treatment.

“This concept takes that guesswork out of it,” Stanton said. “You can go there, and based on an assessment by top-tier clinicians, they determine if what you're experiencing, whatever it may be, needs emergency care level services or urgent care.”

The distinction can also affect what patients pay. Someone who goes to an emergency department for a condition that could have been handled at urgent care would generally face emergency-level charges, Stanton said.

“By taking the guesswork out, we put you in the right track,” he said. “It ultimately means the right care for your ailments, but also at a cost that is commensurate with what you're experiencing.”

The facility will include on-site diagnostic services, including X-ray, ultrasound and CT scanning. It will also operate as an outpatient imaging center, allowing patients who need certain imaging services to receive them without traveling to VHC Health's main Arlington campus.

The physicians overseeing emergency care at the new center will come from the same physician group providing care at the hospital, Stanton said. The facility also will employ the same type of emergency department staff used at the Arlington hospital.

More intensive emergency cases, including trauma cases, would still need to be treated at a hospital. The Falls Church facility will be able to assess those patients and determine when hospital-level care is necessary.

VHC Emergency Department Seeing More Patients

The expansion comes as VHC Health is confronting increased demand at its Arlington emergency department.

Stanton said the emergency department on the hospital's main campus was built in the early 2000's with capacity for about 50,000 visits annually. During the past decade, however, it has been handling more than 60,000 visits a year and approaching 70,000.

VHC Health is separately expanding the emergency department on its Arlington campus, but Stanton said the system also needs another location for emergency cases that don't necessarily require treatment at the hospital.

The Falls Church location was selected in part because the area falls within VHC Health's primary service area, which Stanton described as the communities from which roughly 75 percent of the system's patients come.

VHC Health is looking at which services don't have to be located at the hospital and whether they can instead be placed closer to where patients live and work, he said.

“This is one of them,” Stanton said.

Construction is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2027. VHC Health expects the center to become operational either late in the first quarter or early in the second quarter after the facility is prepared for opening.

The building will also contain about 12,000 square feet of shell space that could eventually accommodate additional uses. Although the county approvals allow commercial or retail uses, Stanton said VHC Health expects the space will more likely be used for medical or complementary services.

Stanton said VHC Health worked with Fairfax County officials and surrounding communities before the project received county approval. Community representatives also participated in the beam-signing ceremony.

“This truly was a partnership with the surrounding community,” Stanton said.