The newly built Santa Barbara Cottage Health’s Grotenhuis Pediatric Clinic gives patients access to 15 pediatric specialists all under one roof.

The clinic opened on the second floor of the new Cottage Medical Clinic at 2401 Bath St. in January, relocating from the Goleta Valley Medical Office building that’s across the street from Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital. 

Now across the street from Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Jenn Wobig, Cottage Health administrative director, said the space makes it easier for patients to book back-to-back appointments and see multiple specialists in one visit. 

“I think it relieves the burden on the family that they have everything that they need in one space,” Wobig said. “I think it just definitely improves their ability to get what they need for their family.”

The new space includes eight exam rooms, a dedicated room for developmental and behavioral testing, two psychiatry offices, 18 general exam rooms, an infusion suite and underground parking. 

All of the specialists have been together since the clinic moved to Goleta in 2018, but the space didn’t allow for patients to see multiple specialists all on the same day. Wobig said the plan was always to move back closer to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. 

“Patients are used to being at the hospital, so being directly adjacent to it is just familiar to our patients and our families,” Wobig said. “Also, it gives access to our providers who have patients in the hospital, and they can just walk across the street to see them, versus having to get in their car and drive.”

Since adolescent patients aren’t seen at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital, Chief Pediatric Medical Officer Dr. Miriam Parsa said providers would have to drive from Goleta to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital to see patients. 

“The move really helped us be closer so we can provide inpatient and outpatient support a little bit quicker, more readily, without the stress as well,” Parsa said.

The new clinic is bright, with pops of relaxing blue and purple hues throughout and colorful light features. Wobig said patients have been impressed with the new modern space. 

“The families feel like this is a space for them to be able to receive care, but also in a way that makes them feel like they’re in an extension of home,” Wobig said. “That was really important to us, and I feel like that’s definitely felt by our patients.”

Another benefit of the new space is the ability to have dedicated rooms for things such as echocardiograms, pulmonary function, and developmental behavioral pediatrics.

There’s also room for the clinic’s newest specialty, child and adolescent psychiatry with a child adolescent psychiatrist and a behavioral health therapist.

“There’s an, unfortunately, insatiable demand or need for behavioral health, and it’s only increasing,” Parsa said. “It started with COVID and has increased exponentially.”

Wobig said the old facility was more medical exam room focused, but the new space allows for medical and behavioral health to be treated under the same roof.

“It sort of normalizes things for kids, when all the kids are coming to the same place to get care, whether it’s a medical issue or a behavioral health issue,” Wobig said. “We have that flexibility here that I think was really important for us, and we didn’t have that flexibility at the other space.”

The clinic can be reached at the same phone number, 805.879.4240, and appointments can be scheduled as usual.