The big picture
Ambulatory surgeries are minor procedures, such as setting a wrist fracture or performing a colonoscopy, and patients are able to go home the day of their surgery with no need for an overnight stay. The center will exclusively perform these operations.
Methodist Richardson has been working to add an ambulatory surgical center to its campus for the last three years, said Ken Hutchenrider, Methodist Richardson Medical Center president.
“It’s really to further round out our overall services, because there are patients that need ambulatory surgery, and it makes perfect sense to have it here in an ambulatory center versus coming into the main hospital,” Hutchenrider said.
The center is part of a $22 million expansion that aims to boost Methodist Richardson’s surgical capacity and create the foundation for a higher trauma designation.
Why it matters
Having this designated center for minor procedures will free up space in Methodist Richardson’s main operating rooms for more patients who need extensive care, Hutchenrider said. Hutchenrider estimated that the ambulatory surgery center will see about 30 patients a day, a third of the normal volume of the main operating rooms.
“That will allow us to backfill [our main operating rooms] with a more difficult, more critical type of patient, which is what we’re continuing to enhance and increase at our main facility,” Hutchenrider said.
Hutchenrider said Methodist Richardson is also working on adding at least two new operating rooms to the main hospital and considering adding a new tower in the next few years.
Medical Director of Cardiology Nhan Nguyen said that the ambulatory surgery center furthers Methodist Richardson’s goal to expand its quality of care in the most cost-effective way.
“We have the opportunity here to be on the ground floor to create something very, very special, and I think this is just the beginning of the whole thing,” said Nguyen, who also serves as the chairman for the ambulatory surgery center’s board of directors. “My vision is that this facility will grow and explode just like Methodist Richardson next door has, and this will live on way beyond us.”
