Elite Medical Center aims to get visitors back to their Vegas vacations

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Wade Vandervort

An exterior view of Elite Medical Center just off the strip on Harmon Ave, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020.

Mon, Feb 17, 2020 (2 a.m.)

Imagine being in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime vacation in Las Vegas, only to get sick or injured during your visit. That narrative is common at Elite Medical Center, which opened in 2018 just off the Strip.

The center, located at 150 E. Harmon Ave., next to Topgolf, welcomes about 35 patients per day, 90% of whom are tourists, says Patty Holden, the clinic’s CEO. Many patients are dealing with hydration issues, falls and broken bones.

“Tourists like to get back to what they were doing,” she said. “When you’re on vacation and you sprain an ankle and you’re in an emergency room, it can ruin that whole trip.”

The idea at Elite is to get patients in and out. Usually, Holden said, that happens in under two hours. Elite also has local patients, mostly dealing with workers’ compensation cases.

Of course, visitors with major trauma or in end-of-emergency care aren’t visiting Elite. They go directly to one of the hospitals near the resort corridor, such as University Medical Center or Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.

“Most know and appreciate the level of service and care we provide for their visitors,” Holden said. “We don’t have an intensive care unit, and we don’t do surgery, but we know there are other facilities—some great facilities—that can take care of those patients who are much sicker than what we see.”

Just as Las Vegas offers top-notch entertainment, dining and gaming experiences, visitors should be provided with quality health care while here, Holden said. Elite doesn’t contract with Strip resorts, but Holden said relationships forged with various hotel representatives have proven to be valuable.

Elite also features touches of Las Vegas hospitality. There’s a room with free snacks and sodas for visitors, and the new building has all the bells and whistles of a modern facility, including lots of windows with Strip views. “We want our patients to feel comfortable here,” Holden said.

That was the case for Tsey-Haye Johnson, who visited Las Vegas on a business trip with her husband in January. They both began to feel ill and went to Elite to get checked out. “Within about seven minutes, we were being called back to a room,” Johnson said. “The physician came in five minutes later and they ran the necessary test to confirm I didn’t have the flu, but I was seriously dehydrated and had an upper respiratory bacterial infection. The rooms and staff were very nice, and the food was excellent.”

The concept behind the Elite brand—there are five other locations, all in Texas—was born when founding partner Eric McLaughlin and his business associates noted a void in the Lone Star State.

“In Texas, we had a perfect storm occur,” said McLaughlin, a medical doctor with a specialty in emergency medicine with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from BYU. “There was high patient dissatisfaction, along with long wait times and high doctor burnout. We thought there was an alternative model that would better serve patients.”

McLaughlin had visited Las Vegas a number of times over the years. He said he kept hearing about a lack of tourist-centric medical care. “The common phrase that you’d hear was that a visitor would need to go to McCarran [International Airport] to get great medical care if they had an emergency,” McLaughlin said. “We heard that over and over. We realized there was an opportunity to provide hospitable emergency care to this incredible place that welcomes tens of millions of visitors every year.”

With about 70 employees and increasing patient volume, the Elite facility in Las Vegas is growing fast. At this time last year, Elite was averaging 20 patients per day.

“I think we’re all just proud to work here,” Holden said of her staff. “It’s a great place, and we offer a great service. We’ll get you better and back to enjoying your vacation.”

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