Doctors and administrative professionals at major hospitals often find it difficult to schedule operating rooms and have little say in who makes up the support staff. Outpatient surgery centers allow for more intimate settings where health professionals can spend more time with each patient and develop relationships with handpicked staff employees.

These surgery centers serve as profit centers for companies and a boon of much-needed space for both patients and doctors. Busy major hospitals can spread individual care and attention thin. As a result, many patients undergoing moderate operations prefer separate centers, which are easier to locate and can be less intimidating than large hospitals. Patients can enter the facility, receive treatment and go home the same day, recovering at home, which aids recovery. Surgery centers also are more affordable for most patients due to differing fee schedules for Medicare and commercial patients.

Outpatient surgery centers are managed by professional staff members, and a board made up of doctors often owns and operates each facility.

“When these centers are run properly and well, they can be an ancillary source of income,” Physician Surgery Centers developer Jeff Dottl said. “The difference between renovating a major hospital versus a new center is potentially millions of dollars.”

Finding the contractors to build these surgery centers is easier than renovating a hospital, as the confines and costs associated with creating a separate facility are significantly smaller. It boils down to economics. It is usually more financially feasible to build on existing land or revamp a shell property.

“Many surgery centers are expensive to build and operate at the outset,” Raymond Fox and Associates Medical Architecture and Consulting principal architect Ray Fox said. “But if you can save $5K or $10K a month on rent and other overhead costs, you’re going to do that, even if it’s more difficult.”

Parker Brown’s recent renovation and wing addition to the SCOI California Institute’s fifth-floor space — for the largest orthopedic group in the western United States — is an example of this, in which cost savings and long-term benefits resulted in a delicate dance of an occupied remodel. Construction teams first built out two new operating rooms and three recovery rooms, allowing staff and patients to use those spaces. The crew worked nights and weekends to remodel the rooms, while the staff and patients slowly reoccupied the rooms one by one.

“It’s a tribute to the commitment and talent of both the construction crew, contractors, the client and the health professionals we were working around that we were able to successfully coordinate a project like this,” Fox said. “And it’s a tribute to the healthy demand for these centers as well.”

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