New Albany’s relationship with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) takes another step as the university health system opens a large outpatient health and surgery center facility in its back yard this summer.
Located at the Hamilton Quarter mixed-use development along state Route 161, the estimated 250,000-square-foot facility will consist of a medical office building and an ambulatory surgery center, which houses surgery, endoscopy, physical therapy and rehabilitation, imaging, urgent care, retail pharmacy and sterilization operations, among others.
“It’s really a dynamic one-stop-shop for health and wellness care,” says Garth Dahdah, director of strategic growth and facility operations for ambulatory services for the OSUWMC.
Garth Dahdah
Patients, for instance, can have imaging, surgery, post-operative care and follow-ups in the same location. If needed, they can access mammograms, colonoscopies, and routine and diagnostic services, including obstetrics and gynecology; ophthalmology; ear, nose and throat; allergy; infusion; heart and vascular; and digestive services.
“We wanted to have an outpatient health and surgery that can see a good number of patients and it can be comprised of all these different specialties,” Dahdah says. “So they’re not bouncing from location to location, if they come in and see their primary care physician and they need to get a chest X-ray, they can do it right there, they need to get labs, they can do it right there. They want to get their medications filled, they can get them filled right there.”
The $137.9 million project is expected to employ 350 faculty, providers and staff combined, generate a projected payroll of $50 million within the next decade, and offer positions for medical professionals and opportunities for medical students to work with larger, more diverse patient populations.
It will complement the OSUWMC’s main campus, its services at the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany, the clinic on Market Street and the health center in Gahanna that some New Albany residents may be using now.
Because those existing facilities are landlocked, it prohibited further expansion and therefore further growth in patient volume, Dahdah says. He anticipates the new health and surgery center will serve 1,000 patients per day shortly following its opening and then continue to grow.
“We want to see more patients in a timely manner,” Dahdah says.
Perhaps the biggest benefit for the New Albany community is that residents will not have to drive down to the OSUWMC’s main campus or the Gahanna location for services offered at the New Albany facility.
“Some people don’t want to travel down to a very busy campus location for routine care,” Dahdah says.
It can take about 30 minutes, he says, for New Albany residents to commute to and from their homes to the main campus. They then have to find parking and then try to navigate a complex hospital system, all of which can be a hassle to receive preventive care and other same-day appointments.
“We’re finding that more and more people are seeking high-quality care within the area that they live and work in,” Dahdah says.
In addition, the outpatient health and surgery center will offer urgent care plus as an alternative to emergency department visits. Patients who visit this particular urgent care can be referred to specialty care and other services offered within the same facility.
The outpatient care facility further deepens the OSUWMC’s relationship with New Albany after it launched services at the Heit Center six years ago.
“(The New Albany) area is growing tremendously in population and will continue to grow tenfold over the next 10 years or so. So we thought that was a perfect area for (an outpatient health and surgery center),” Dahdah says.
Family medicine will move from the Heit Center to the new outpatient health and surgery center with OSUWMC backfilling the void with behavioral health services. Its sports medicine program will move, too, with Nationwide Children’s Hospital expected expansion to its sports medicine and orthopedics practice in its place. OSUWMC will continue its physical therapy and wellness program at the Heit Center.
“We still have a great relationship with the city of New Albany at the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany,” he adds. “So I see it’s just going to continue as normal. Market Street where we have a presence there now, a couple of our physicians from the Heit Center will go over to help that clinic as well, but we’re going to keep that clinic for those that want to go to more of a smaller boutique-type clinic and not go to a big medical office building.”
In addition, the OSUWMC has room to grow the New Albany outpatient health and surgery center on the 32-acre site into a 100-bed small hospital, but there are no plans to do so as of now, Dahdah says.
The biggest difference between the outpatient health and surgery center and a small hospital is that the latter is geared more toward patients who require an overnight stay for monitoring.
At a hospital, faculty can “focus a little more on the overnight stay kind of patient and are going to have several different diseases,” Dahdah says. “So they need to be able to be in an environment that is really safe for them. … If somebody does come in and they are being seen for something but then, you know, something else happens to them, it becomes an emergency issue. They can be treated appropriately there. … We wouldn’t be able to do that in the outpatient care setting.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has not affected the construction of the outpatient facility, Dahdah says, and it is on schedule to welcome the first patient in August when nearly half of the building is expected to be occupied. Surgeries and endoscopy procedures are expected to start in September.
The New Albany facility is one of three suburban facilities planned. The OSUWMC plans to open one in Dublin next year and eventually one in Powell.
The facilities will redirect some of the patient traffic the main campus normally experiences.
“That same high-quality care that we are delivering at our main academic campus will be extended out to the surrounding communities again where people live and work, so that’s great,” Dahdah says.
Brandon Klein is the editor. Feedback welcome at bklein@cityscenemediagroup.com.
