ER doctor bets on urgent care chain

Dr. Michael Gutman is bullish on the urgent care industry. Just a year after opening his first urgent care center in West Hartford, the veteran emergency department physician is preparing to open two more locations in Enfield and Simsbury this summer. Gutman founded his company, New England Urgent Care, last February in an attempt to get in on a business that he sees as the future of non-emergency healthcare. Gutman's West Hartford facility on North Main Street is a hybrid between a primary care office and emergency room. Patients are treated primarily by a physician's assistant and there is a full-time emergency department nurse on staff.