URMC cuts ribbon on upstate’s largest ambulatory surgery center

The new URMC Surgery Center.

On Thursday, July 30, URMC marked the opening of upstate New York’s largest hospital-affiliated ambulatory surgery center, featuring 10 operating suites and three procedure rooms equipped with advanced technology, plus roomy facilities built to enhance patient comfort and privacy.

The new center offers welcome relief to a busy surgical enterprise. A recent surge in urgent, high-acuity specialty care has placed greater demand on Strong Memorial’s existing operating suites, forcing many elective and pre-scheduled procedures to either wait or be performed at other outpatient surgical centers altogether. Meanwhile, thanks to promising minimally invasive technologies, improved anesthesia techniques and other innovations, surgeries that formerly required hospital stays can increasingly be performed as outpatient procedures. In 1980, about 10 percent of Strong Memorial’s surgeries were ambulatory procedures; by 2005, that number had climbed to 50 percent, making it the hospital’s fastest growing clinical activity.

Essential to the community’s health care delivery system and a focal point of the Medical Center’s Strategic Plan, the new center blends high-tech innovation with patient-friendly accessibility and will open its doors to patients on Aug. 10. An anticipated 8,500 procedures will be completed at the center in its first year, including orthopaedic, otolaryngology and plastic surgery cases, as well as some colorectal procedures. By its third year, the Center’s capacity could reach 18,000 procedures annually.

URMC partnered with local real estate developer Castle Office Group, LLC, to develop the 80,000-square-foot medical facility at 180 Sawgrass Drive, just off Westfall Road in Brighton. The URMC Surgery Center occupies 52,000 square feet on the building’s main floor, including operating and procedures rooms, private pre- and post-anesthesia areas, plus a pharmacy. Its second floor soon will be home to URMC’s Pain Treatment Center and Division of Colorectal Surgery (opening in August and September respectively), plus a Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy Center (slated to open in January 2010).

For more information about the new URMC Surgery Center, visit http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/surgical-center/.

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