75%. As our minority
shareholder, the hos-
pital will own the rest.
Our surgeons will
perform major surger-
ies in the new facility,
including complex
spine procedures and
hip and knee replace-
ments, so building the
center close to an
acute care hospital
was important. In
fact, it's going up across the street from our partner hospital, so
we'll have quick access to its emergency room and all of its patient
care services. Although location is the No. 1 rule in real estate, sev-
eral other design elements are essential to success in outpatient
orthopedics.
• High-end instrument care. Complex cases require stacks of trays
full of complex instrumentation, and our sterile processing depart-
ment will be equipped to handle the load. Because we'll be perform-
ing joint replacements and spine procedures, we felt it was critical
to outfit our department with reprocessing equipment traditionally
found in large hospitals. Our facility's instrument reprocessing area
will feature a full-size cart washer, 2 washer disinfectors, 2 steam
sterilizers and an ultrasonic cleaner. Including a full-service sterile
processing space in the design added considerable cost and extra
square footage to our project, but we feel that budgeting for addi-
tional instrument care space is essential.
• Block rooms. The opioid epidemic is forcing us to look for alter-
2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A R C H 2 0 1 9
• GROWTH POTENTIAL Medicare's expected decision to pay for knee replacements
performed in surgery centers could come as early as this year.
