Second micro-hospital opens on Albuquerque's east side

After working as an emergency room doctor for over 20 years, Sanjay Kholwadwala began burning out in 2018. Kholwadwala solved his burnout by centering on individual patients, instead of rushing from patient to patient, and just focused on the disease process they were experiencing.

“To me the most rewarding thing is talking to people, rather than just (being) focused on the computer and the labs and jumping back and forth. That’s not happiness for me,” Kholwadwala said. “My passion comes from sitting down with the patients, sitting down with them and listening to their story, because I can see that person.”

He was able to change focus and reignite his own passion for emergency medicine by opening a microhospital with four other board certified emergency room physicians. Two of the physicians previously worked at Presbyterian, two previously worked at Lovelace, and one is based in Texas. The hospital is also partnered with Nutex Health, which owns over 20 health care facilities in eight states.

These days, being an emergency room doctor of the microhospital Albuquerque ER & Hospital is Kholwadwala’s main job, and being CEO is his side job.

“There is no one at the top that says you have to see two and a half patients per hour, because I’m the CEO of the hospital, because if I said this, I’d have to do it too. I’m working in the ER full time,” Kholwadwala said.

The hospital’s medical executive committee is made up entirely of medical professionals, including all 15 of the hospital’s ER doctors, the laboratory executive, a pharmacist, and the chief nursing officer. The physician-owned practice opened a location on the west side four years ago. With patients driving from across town to visit their emergency room, it only made sense to open a new location on the east side.

The grand opening for the east side location near the corner of Montgomery and Wyoming was Thursday, with dignitaries like the Albuquerque mayor present to celebrate a new access point for health care in a state where there are often not enough medical professionals to meet community needs.

Microhospitals are popular in Texas, but there are only two in New Mexico, both located in Albuquerque, said Kholwadwala.

The Albuquerque microhospitals offer most of the services of a regular ER and hospital: triage, MRI’s, CT scans, lab work, overnight in-patient rooms, and critical care, but on a smaller scale. With only six in-patient beds, eight rooms to treat emergency patients, and two critical care rooms, the administrative burden of Albuquerque’s newest microhospital is drastically reduced from that of a large hospital system.

“I think microhospitals are a really neat concept,” Kholwadwala said. “Most people do not need big ER care. They don’t need to go to UNM with trauma, with neurosurgeons.”

If patients do need to consult with a neurosurgeon, they can be seen by a UNMH neurosurgeon via telemedicine after receiving any needed scans. If patients need surgery or a higher level of care, they can be transported to another hospital with an outgoing ambulance.

The hospital is not designed to manage the volume of patients at larger emergency rooms, like Lovelace and Presbyterian, so they do not take any incoming ambulances. The smaller scale, with a volume of about 30 patients per day, allows the emergency room to focus more on patient care and to reduce wait times, Kholwadwala said.

“Why our patients like us is staffing. We only have eight ER beds, but we have three nurses, staffing the eight ER beds,” he said.

For nurse Albert Vermette, it’s a dream job. At his previous job in a larger hospital system, Vermette said he wasn’t able to work as closely with patients and doctors.

“You’re always running. You want to care for somebody, and yet you have to cut them short because you have to run,” Vermette said.

The hospital is fully staffed and open around the clock. All private and commercial insurance providers are accepted, and the hospital does not practice balance billing. According to the hospital's website, it does not accept Medicare or Medicaid plans, but a spokesperson said they hope to be able to accept those plans in the future. The hospital does accept Tricare.

Albuquerque ER & Hospital is located at 8220 Montgomery NE.