Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center - Houston, Texas

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced yesterday it will expand its Conroe VA Outpatient Clinic to handle the growing Veteran demand for health care in the area.

The Conroe VA Outpatient Clinic, currently located at 100 Riverwood Court, is about 9,000 square feet, slightly larger than its original size of 7,600 square feet when it opened in 2007. In fiscal year 2007, the facility had 11,447 outpatient visits. Last year, that number leaped to 40,266.

"The Conroe Clinic is extremely popular with our Veterans who live north of Houston and want to avoid Houston’s traffic,” said Adam C. Walmus, M.H.A., M.A., F.A.C.H.E., Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center director. “We are excited to soon have an enhanced facility to meet this tremendous need.”

VA will now prepare a bid solicitation for approximately 29,000 square feet of clinic space and 225 parking spaces in the Conroe area.

The expanded VA-staffed facility is expected to provide primary health care, mental health care, and women’s specialty care in addition to laboratory, X-ray, telemedicine, teleretinal imaging, pharmacy, optometry, and audiology services.

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Awarded re-designation for Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Services in 2008, the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center serves as the primary health care provider for more than 130,000 veterans in southeast Texas. Veterans from around the country are referred to the MEDVAMC for specialized diagnostic care, radiation therapy, surgery, and medical treatment including cardiovascular surgery, gastrointestinal endoscopy, nuclear medicine, ophthalmology, and treatment of spinal cord injury and diseases. The MEDVAMC is home to a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Clinic; Network Polytrauma Center; an award-winning Cardiac and General Surgery Program; Liver Transplant Center; VA Epilepsy and Cancer Centers of Excellence; VA Substance Abuse Disorder Quality Enhancement Research Initiative; Health Services Research & Development Center of Excellence; VA Rehabilitation Research of Excellence focusing on mild to moderate traumatic brain injury; Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center; and one of the VA’s six Parkinson’s Disease Research, Education, and Clinical Centers. Including the outpatient clinics in Beaumont, Conroe, Galveston, Houston, Lufkin, Richmond, and Texas City, MEDVAMC outpatient clinics logged almost 1.3 million outpatient visits in fiscal year 2011. For the latest news releases and information about the MEDVAMC, visit www.houston.va.gov.