ANN ARBOR, MI - To best serve ambulatory surgical patients and meet increasing demand for surgical services, the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers and the U-M Medical School are asking the U-M Board of Regents today to approve a plan for a new off-site ambulatory surgery and medical procedures center.

The proposed 46,000 gross square foot facility, to be located east of the existing U-M East Ann Arbor Health Center on Plymouth Rd., is a joint effort between the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers and the U-M Medical School to ease increasing outpatient surgery and medical procedure capacity constraints at U-M. The building project, part of the East Ann Arbor Properties, was viewed Monday by Ann Arbor Township.

The new $30 million facility will include six outpatient operating rooms, four medical procedure rooms and related support areas. The building project will also have external and internal pedestrian links to provide access to the East Ann Arbor Health Center, and create additional parking. It is scheduled to be complete in the fall of 2005. Detroit-based architectural firm Albert Kahn Associates is set to design the project, pending Regental approval.

"With our remarkable growth in clinical, especially surgical, activity on the main medical campus it has become very important for us to find alternative methods to continue to meet our patients’ and the community’s health care needs,” says Robert P. Kelch, M.D., U-M Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and U-M Health System CEO. “I am very pleased that the East Ann Arbor Surgery and Medical Procedures Center project will allow us to do that by extending our ability to provide our adult and pediatric patients with greater and more convenient access to medical care."

From fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2003, outpatient surgical activity has increased by 12.5 percent at University Hospital and 10.5 percent at U-M C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. In addition, medical endoscopies performed in the Medical Procedures Unit at UH increased by 25 percent, or 2,874 cases, during the same time period.

By building the East Ann Arbor Ambulatory Surgery and Medical Procedures Center, UMHHC and the U-M Medical School hope to free up more operating room time at UH and Mott for patients that require the most resource-intensive surgical intervention such as transplantation, joint replacement, cardiovascular surgery and major cancer surgeries.

Together, the UMHHC and the U-M Medical School will make ambulatory surgical services more accessible to patients and their families. Through this collaborative effort, physicians will contribute more fully to the overall design of the facility to effectively meet patient care needs.

"I am very excited about the prospect of the East Ann Arbor Surgery Center to provide the latest in surgical treatment and to best serve the needs of our patients,” says Michael W. Mulholland, Ph.D., M.D., Surgeon-in-Chief, UH, and the Frederick A. Coller Distinguished Chair in Surgery. “I am also proud of the unique partnership that the University physicians have entered with the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers. The investment of effort and the commitment of time on both parts will help to assure that patient care always comes first at the University of Michigan."

The UMHHC has implemented several other actions to increase inpatient and outpatient capacity on-site. Those efforts have included reconfiguring operating room space to accommodate additional operating rooms, extending daily operating room schedules, and enhancing case efficiency. There are currently 27 operating rooms in UH, which provide adult surgical interventions for services, excluding ophthalmology. Two additional operating rooms will be added in the summer of 2004, bringing the total number of operating rooms in UH to 29.

In October, the Regents also approved a project that will create a new operating room in Mott. Currently with eight operating rooms, the addition of one operating room will allow Mott to accommodate more patients for surgical services. In fiscal year 2003 alone, more than 9,000 operations were done at Mott, 60 percent of which were outpatient procedures.

Despite these significant operational changes, increases in outpatient activity continue to present challenges to accommodate the growing need for ambulatory surgery and medical procedure services for both adult and pediatric patients.

However, by building a new off-site surgery and medical procedures center, UMHS will meet those demands. With the new East Ann Arbor Surgery and Medical Procedures Center, more patients from UH, Mott and Kellogg will have greater access to outpatient surgical services and medical procedures in a convenient, accessible setting.

The new center has been designed to meet demand for more than 7,000 surgical cases and an estimated 2,000 medical procedures each year. UMHHC capital resources and Medical School resources will fund the building project.

Written by Krista Hopson

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