New sports medicine clinic offers one-stop-shop at West Edmonton Mall

A new clinic in Edmonton is hoping to become an all-in-one to help people with sprains, strains, broken bones and sports medicine-related injuries.

The ZerOne Athleticare community clinic held its grand opening Thursday. The clinic has physicians, surgeons and allied healthcare professionals, including physiotherapists, psychologists and dieticians, on staff.

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The clinic is geared towards athletes and is connected to a hockey training facility, but it is also hoping to help take pressure off hospitals.

"We're currently talking with the Misericordia Hospital and the Stollery hospital to figure out ways that we can make healthcare, specifically for sprains, strains and broken bones, more accessible to people," Dr. Stephanie Liu, the co-director of ZerOne Athleticare, said.

"We're hoping to catch people actually before they ever show up at the emergency department, just by helping them learn about our services and what we can do for them," Dr. Alexis Katzell, the clinic's other co-director, added.

Liu stressed that the facility is a community clinic, not a private clinic.

Physician services are covered through Alberta Health and allied healthcare is covered through insurance, like other clinics in the province.

"We're different than just being a family medicine practice because we don't see all of the other issues like the coughs, the urinary tract infections and other things," Liu said

"We're a focused community clinic on just sprains, strains, broken bones and the like."

Some of the benefits of a clinic with such a wide-range of medical staff is accessibility and speed, Liu added. She added the arrangement allows better communication between different disciplines to ensure patients stay on the right track for recovery.

"You're able to get diagnosed quicker, and then the best part is you're able to start the treatment process quicker too," Liu said. "There is some data that shows that if you're able to address the issue and start treatment earlier, you probably are going to get better outcomes."

The concept for the all-in-one clinic has been in the works for two years now, according to Liu.

The model is not a common one in Alberta for a number of reasons, added Katzell, with one of the main issues being the need for a large amount of space.

Keeping kids healthy and active

Sports, especially when played at a high level, tend to come with injuries and those can greatly affect athletes. Keeping kids active and in sports is something that the clinic wants to promote.

"Those injuries can change their whole season and it can actually take them out of that activity," Katzell said. "By improving accessibility here, we make it so that kids who suffer from those things can come upstairs and get helped out right away."

The clinic is working with the University of Alberta, and it received $100,000 from the City of Edmonton's Edge Fund grant to support recovery-centered AI technology.

The clinic will begin to accept walk-in patients starting on Aug. 26 and will open radiology and casting clinics in the coming months.

"Not everyone needs to be injured, especially to see people like our physiotherapist, our registered dietician, our psychologist – sometimes you just want to optimize your health," Katzell said.

"(Maybe) you're looking at starting something new, like training for a race, and you want somebody who's going to help you take care of yourself in that journey. We're here for that too."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson