When I think of healthcare in the Scenic 98 Coastal footprint, the first person I think of is Quint Studer. If you are not familiar with Quint, I encourage you to do a little research and hear his story. Now a resident of Pensacola with his wife Rishey, he is described as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and co-owner of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. He is much more than that, I promise.

Years ago, while working in healthcare management, Quint was asked to see if he could help turn around an ailing hospital with rock-bottom patient satisfaction ratings. His simple philosophy was “Treat your employees well, and patient care will improve.” 

Patient satisfaction did indeed improve almost immediately and his company, The Studer Group, using that philosophy, helped improve hospital patient satisfaction results across the United States. I love this story. Take care of your employees, and they will, in turn, take care of their patients. 

Meet George Loukatos, the founder of AlphaCare Urgent Care. George opened two AlphaCare facilities this year in Fairhope and Spanish Fort, and he has a similar philosophy on patient satisfaction with an interesting story to tell. I met with George recently and found him to be a down-to-earth person with a passion for improving patient satisfaction. The lessons he learned as a physician, with years of Emergency Room experience, have guided him to focus on providing a better healthcare experience.

George was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and grew up in Peabody and Andover, both on the north shore of Boston. Yes, he’s a big Red Sox fan and attended games as a kid. He attended college and ran track at Holy Cross in Worcester, MA before entering medical school at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.

He did his four-year residency at Tulane Medical School and Charity Hospital of New Orleans, finishing in 2003, two years before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and closed down Charity.  When he completed his medical training, George was double board-certified in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.

He took his first job as a hospitalist and emergency room doctor in Jackson, MS. A hospitalist is the person who takes care of you when you are hospitalized. He spent two years there before accepting a full-time position in the ER in Laurel, MS.  He moved to Hattiesburg and commuted to Laurel but within a year was asked to come back to Jackson as the Director of his prior ER.  He then began moving up the administrative chain and was soon asked to assume the Regional Director role, overseeing eleven hospital emergency departments in the state. 

One of those eleven hospitals was in Biloxi, where he eventually moved to assume the Director of the ER role while continuing to serve as the Regional Director for the Mississippi group of hospitals.  He spent nearly 10 years as the Director of Biloxi Regional Medical Center (now Merit Health Biloxi) before eventually leaving to practice and run his urgent care network.

As Regional Director, George was faced with ever-increasing frustration with the state of the for-profit health care system.  Limited resources, short staffing, and disregard for patient safety and quality healthcare slowly became the norm.  

“As the director, I was in charge of providing quality to the community, but was never given the resources necessary to maintain that quality.”  His growing frustration, along with the grind of night shifts and the time away from his family eventually led him to look for opportunities outside of hospital administration. 

He asked himself, “What do I know how to do? If I can run an emergency room, I can definitely run an urgent care.” He tells me that an urgent care facility is a smaller version of an emergency room, with lower intensity but many similarities in what patients need. He decided to take the plunge and opened his first urgent care center in December 2018. 

“Our foundational principles are to provide affordable quality health care in a friendly, efficient, and clean environment.”  Similar to Quint Studer, he knew that having happy employees makes for happy patients, so much of his focus lies on staff development and retention.  

“We recruit healthcare providers that have robust experience and strong customer service skills. We strive to attract the best because we expect them to be the best.   You can’t expect great results without having the best possible staff in place and taking care to retain and reward that staff.”

AlphaCare opened its first clinic in Biloxi and rapidly expanded to Ocean Springs and then Gulfport.  “We were able to expand because of the need for accessible care in our area and the excellent reputation that we earned from the outstanding work of our employees.”  

AlphaCare’s hours are from 8 AM until 8 PM, including weekends, and they only close on five major holidays throughout the year. They also provide services such as  IV fluids, laceration repair, and fracture care that many other walk-in clinics refer to the ER.  

When Covid hit and “it blew us up,” says George. “We went from seeing 30 to 40 patients a day to 80 to 120 patients a day.  We were able to get patients COVID testing results in 24-72 hours when most places were taking a week to 10 days, so we rapidly became the place to go to get testing done.”  

With the sudden and rapid increase in patient volumes, many new challenges presented themselves.  “It was a difficult and stressful time, trying to maintain the quality and efficiency that we expected of ourselves in the face of huge patient volumes, sick and quarantined staff, and the supply chain issues that every medical facility faced.

George decided to pump the brakes on expansion and focus on the quality of those that were already open.  As the pandemic abated, like a lot of folks, he began spending his free time in Fairhope. Several local friends told him of the need for a quality urgent care system on the Eastern Shore, and the rapid growth of Baldwin County made it seem like a “no brainer”.

He began looking for properties in December of 2021 and within a few months had purchased lots in Fairhope and Spanish Fort.  A year and a half later, AlphaCare Urgent Care Fairhope opened its doors on Greeno Road, and the Spanish Fort location on Eastern Shore Boulevard opened a month later on June 15.

I asked George if it was difficult to build his staff considering the general state of the healthcare industry. “It took a little longer than I expected.  My job postings were flooded with applications from new graduates and providers without much experience.  I wanted more seasoned providers with emergency room experience. It took about 6 months, but I am extremely excited about the team that we have put together.  I think the community is going to love them.” 

When asked what makes AlphaCare different from other healthcare providers, George responds, “Our mantra is to do what’s right for the patient, and everything else will fall into place.  We call all of our patients back to check on them and really try to listen to their needs.”   

One of the other things that came out of AlphaCare’s Covid experience is that they realized that they are an important part of the communities they serve. “People put a lot of trust in us, and we want to maintain that trust by providing the quality healthcare everyone deserves when they need it.  That’s why we stay open late seven days a week.”

“I also want people to know that we want to be a part of the communities we serve, to support them, and help make them better places to live.” In Mississippi, AlphaCare provides three $5000 college scholarships, one per clinic, to high school seniors based on academics, an essay, financial need, extracurricular activities, and community involvement. They plan to add scholarships here as well.  

“I enjoy giving back to the community,” says George. “I believe it’s important, and I’m excited to get involved. We support a lot of not-for-profit organizations, and also do a lot within our organization to try to help those in need.” 

I mentioned to George that it seems like he has worked himself right back into the thing he wanted to get away from, administration. He laughed and told me that he has been pulling shifts at the new clinics as they build their staff, but that now, instead of just suggesting ways to improve patient care, he can make it happen.

“I can focus on the things I know make for a positive patient experience.  We start with hiring the best people and taking care of them, and from there, it’s just the commitment to deliver on that promise.  Happy employees make happy patients!” 

Sounds familiar! Welcome to the Scenic 98 Coastal area, AlphaCare. As we always say, “We are glad you are here!”