As the new Ireland Army Health Clinic building nears competition, plans are already under way to start relocation of staff offices--but some of those will be within the IRAHC footprint, and not necessarily the new building.
According to Capt. Chariti Paden, the IRAHC transition officer, the new clinic has space for most of IRAHC's mission on Fort Knox, but a lot of the administrative offices and a few specialty services will be located in buildings elsewhere.
"Staff from the current facility are being relocated to the Ireland Annex (BLDG 853) incrementally," she explained. "The first department to move is the budget office around March 19th, and following BOD is human resources around March 25. After that, operations will move around April 15 and then clinical operations, the managed care division, and logistics elements will move into the annex building in May."
Paden explained that the missions for each of the departments are ongoing ones so they won't be able to take lengthy time off, therefore each department will move into the building separately so there will be limited interruption. The end goal is to have all the moves completed by July 17 to correspond with Fort Knox MEDDAC taking control of the new clinic. In that way, she added, all other efforts will then be focused on outfitting the new building so it can be ready.
But before the department moves were scheduled, the building was renovated. The construction project included removing restrooms in 10 office spaces to create room for more administrative offices, adding doors, and painting the entire interior.
There will continue to be Veterans Administration provider offices that will occupy some of the space and there will be a separate entry for those offices.
Lt. Col. Peter Markot, the clinic's deputy commander, said using multiple buildings for its daily operations will have no impact on the quality of patient care.
"While most of our admin functions will be located in the annex, the services already at Margetis, for example preventive medicine and the Exceptional Family Member program, will stay where they are," he said. "Our footprint on Fort Knox won't change much from what it has been, but the departments that occupy those buildings will change a little."
The new clinic will have capacity for physical therapy, occupational therapy, and chiropractic services, primary care--into which pediatrics will fold--radiology, laboratory, pharmacy, behavioral health, TBI, hearing conservation, allergy, optometry and nutritional care.
The Ireland Annex building is located at 433 192nd Tank BN Rd, directly behind the Thrift Shop.
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