BANGOR – Northeast Cardiology Associates, a diagnostic and treatment facility for heart patients, has found a place to call home after serving the Bangor area for nearly 28 years. The organization was previously spread out over four small Bangor offices, none of which provided efficient space to serve its patients effectively.

“We literally had people that had desks in closets,” Dr. Robert Hoffmann of Northeast Cardiology Associates said Tuesday. “You really can’t expand very easily in that kind of environment.”

Northeast Cardiology has 18 physicians, 11 physician assistants and nurse practitioners, and about 90 employees. In the fall, the firm expects to hire two additional physicians.

The group began the process of deciding where to expand about seven years ago. Originally the firm considered moving to the Eastern Maine Medical Center campus in Bangor, but that plan fell through

Contractors searched existing buildings in the area for a structure that could sufficiently house the organization, but eventually decided the most cost-effective route would be to build a new facility. Northeast Cardiology’s new two-story, 28,000-square-foot building at Enterprise Park on Northeast Drive, just off Hammond Street, was finished in mid-April after two years of planning and construction.

“The planning really paid off in the smooth transition,” Executive Director Marshall Maglothin said Tuesday.

Northeast Cardiology also is changing to a paperless system of medical record keeping, which it plans to have completed within the next three months.

The technology in the new building is much more advanced and includes computer terminals in each examination room. Physicians can send medical records via the network to its outlying clinics and the hospitals it serves. Northeast Cardiology has outreach clinics in every hospital from Waterville north to Fort Kent, with the exception of Houlton.

“I think anytime that you can provide convenient services to the community, it’s beneficial,” Hoffmann said. “It’s a much more cost-efficient way of applying services.” The new site offers enough land for further expansion should the business continue to grow.