Columbia Primary Care Opens New UWS Location

On Friday, Nov 13, Columbia Primary Care practice welcomed limited guests for a socially distanced ribbon-cutting ceremony. Leaders from CUIMC and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital offered remarks for guests in attendance and viewers watching via livestream. Council Member Mark Levine also provided remarks.

The practice will offer same-day appointments, telehealth options and access to Columbia’s network of more than 2,000 medical specialists.

“This event is a reflection of the deep and longstanding partnership between NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University,” said Anil Rustgi, MD, interim executive vice president and dean of the faculties of health sciences and medicine at CUIMC. “Together, our partnership underscores the importance of primary care medicine. We want to take care of our residents in the neighborhood and beyond, in all types of primary care.”

Located at 2702 Broadway on the corner of Broadway and 103rd Street, the new facility includes eight examination rooms equipped with cutting-edge medical equipment, including telemedicine capability in every room, digital signage and video interpreter services. It is staffed by a multidisciplinary team of pediatricians, family physicians, internal medicine physicians and nurse practitioners.

Donna Lynne, DrPH, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Columbia University Irving Medical Center and chief executive officer of ColumbiaDoctors, thanked everyone whose hard work brought the new location to life. She commended the contributions of David Buchholz, MD, senior founding medical director for primary care at Columbia. “When we recruited [David], our goal was to build state-of-the-art facilities and recruit top primary care doctors to open up primary care in this neighborhood and subsequently in other neighborhoods.”

Council Member Levine said: “This horrible pandemic has taught us that the profound inequality of underlying conditions has to be addressed by expanding access to primary care. This is the way we are going to achieve greater equality of health outcomes in New York City.

“I celebrate the opening of this facility as a way to draw in new patients who may not have otherwise gotten advanced care,” he added. “This is going to be a really important facility for this neighborhood.”