Last week, the Northeastern Ambulatory Care Center held a health and wellness fair providing area residents with information on health services and screenings.

But organizers also hoped to use the occasion to answer questions about what has become of the 275,000-square foot complex since Northeastern Hospital closed on June 30 after serving the river wards for almost a century.

In the following months, the Temple University Health System-run center became an outpatient-only facility, leaving residents to wonder how the clinic will continue to serve the community.

Karen Gulch-Lea, managing director of the newly opened NACC, offered a tour of the facility to the Star last Wednesday.

As she walked along the building's scarcely populated hallways, Gulch-Lea said she understands the confusion, and hoped that the recent health and wellness fair allowed residents to learn what the center offers.

"Let's face it, it wasn't good what we went through. But, this is a good start," said Gulch-Lea in reference to the shutdown of the 85-year-old hospital, which resulted in 400 layoffs.

Gulch-Lea, who worked as an associate hospital director of Northeastern Hospital for six years before being tapped to manage the center, said the new clinic offers a wide variety of services, even if it's not able to offer all of the inpatient and emergency services the hospital offered.

Currently, the center's various services take up only about 80,000-square feet, or roughly 30 percent, of the entire complex, leaving many once active rooms and floors empty and unused. Gulch-Lea said one of her first goals is to bring in more tenants.

"Right now, a lot of it is storage," she said. "It's smaller. We don't have the activity (the hospital used to have) now. We need to fill it back up and make it vibrant to the community again."

Still, she lauded the services that the outpatient NACC is able to provide.

The center houses the offices of 17 physicians who specialize in various services such as gastrointestinal care, cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, women's care and general family health.

In fact, Gulch-Lea said all outpatient services that had been provided by the hospital are still offered at the NACC, including cancer care, radiology services and specialty physicians' offices.

One of the key features touted by NACC is ReadyCare, a Temple-run service designed to help expedite treatment for minor injuries and illnesses - and take pressure off overburdened emergency rooms.

The office, open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day of the year, is able to treat minor injuries - sprains, minor burns, back and joint pain - as well as minor illnesses such as the common cold, flu, allergies, earaches, sore throat and more.

According to the Elaine Lowry, practice manager of ReadyCare, the service attempts fill gaps when a patient's regular doctor is unavailable.

She said the office is able to handle most medical issues short of a life-threatening emergency or any inpatient procedure.

"We try to step in and keep that service in the community. That's why we are doing all this," said Lowry of ReadyCare. "We help step in if your doctor is out."

She said her facility, with six treatment rooms and staffed by four licensed nurses and two medical assistants, is able to handle common medical issues that often slow down the rate of patient intake at emergency rooms.

If a patient arrives with a life-threatening condition too severe to treat at ReadyCare, the staff is trained to contact emergency services.

"If we feel the level of care can't be done here, we call emergency (services)," said Lowry. "This really is a beautiful facility."

At the former hospital's emergency rooms, shrouded by large tarps, the entire area was under construction to make way for the women's health and obstetric care offices, currently housed in the nearby Helene Fuld building.

Gulch-Lea said the women's care services would offer maternity care for pregnant women right up to the day of birth.

Only for the delivery of their child would a patient need to move to Temple Hospital's main campus, she said.

By bringing the woman's health office to the main building, she said, the center might have more room to expand, filling in vacant office space.

"We're looking at a strategic plan for how to rent out the rest of this space," she said. "We're looking at all avenues ... physical therapy, maybe a hospice or senior housing ... or dentists' offices."

Calling the demise of Northeastern Hospital a "microcosm of what's happening with healthcare throughout the country," Gulch-Lea said that while the closure of Northeastern was regrettable, she is excited to be part of the new NACC.

She believes the center is the next step in the evolution of healthcare in America and feels it will help serve the needs of the community long into the future.

"It was tough, but it's a fact of life," she said about the NACC's tumultuous beginnings. "It's a challenge, but I'm really happy to be part of it. We're here because we want to be here. We're providing the basic level of care that a community needs."

Many of the physicians have offices in the NACC seem to be excited about the new facility as well.

Dr. Brian Reiter, who works in orthopedics and just recently joined the staff at the NACC, said that, since he first stepped into the outpatient facility, he had a good feeling about the staff and services that occupied the building.

"My first time walking in, I had a good feeling," he said. "This is a really nice community to work with."

"Outpatient support is what it's all about," said Dr. Donald Kahn, a cardiologist at the NACC.

Kahn, who had worked at Northeastern since the 1970s, said that for the first time in his career, his patients are able to receive care more expediently thanks to the removal of the inpatient and emergency services.

"The level of support for outpatient care is great, if not better, now," he said.

Reporter Hayden Mitman can be reached at 215-354-3124 or hmitman@phillynews.com