Advanced surgical care in the convenience of an outpatient setting
Reducing the wait for care
An Outpatient Surgery Center will help more people in our community access high-quality care.
We have an opportunity to improve patient wait times and access to the advanced care provided by Vermont’s only academic medical center. This is especially important as the region’s population grows and aging Vermonters’ health care needs change.
If we don’t do something now, more and more Vermonters will go without, wait too long, or leave the state for care.
Stephen Leffler, MD, president and chief operating officer, UVM Medical Center
read Dr. Leffler’s opinion article »
An Outpatient Surgery Center will support new approaches to patient care.
To meet the present and future needs of our communities, University of Vermont Medical Center is proposing a facility that expands the number of surgeries that can be performed in a setting that is enabled by the latest technology that’s convenient for patients and families and gets them back home to recover faster.
UVM Medical Center’s operating rooms are some of the busiest in the country, yet we still struggle to meet the needs of our community. Without additional capacity, we anticipate falling short by 4,300 cases per year by 2030. This means thousands of people – our neighbors, friends and family members – will not be able to get surgical care when they need it, close to home.
The state-of-the-art 80,000 square foot facility will house eight operating rooms to start. It will allow us to shift care from the five operating rooms at the Fanny Allen Campus and immediately add three additional operating rooms with room to expand with Vermont’s growing needs.
The Outpatient Surgery Center is part of a carefully planned strategy to provide the expert care our patients need as close to home as possible and in the most appropriate setting. Today, many procedures are performed in the main hospital that would be better suited to an outpatient environment. Transitioning more of these cases to an Outpatient Surgery Center will also allow us to expand and improve UVM Medical Center’s main campus for complex and urgent life-saving surgeries.
What the experts say:
UVMMC faces both current and future shortages […] and these shortages remain even when alternative assumptions […] are used.
The construction cost [of the facility] falls within the industry standard in New England.
[Outpatient] surgery offers significant costs savings and generally superior 30-day outcomes relative to inpatient-based care […]
We must act now to care for the people who depend on us.
Even now, some of our patients are waiting too long for care. Left unaddressed, we project this will get worse. The Outpatient Surgery Center is a major undertaking we are pursuing for the benefit of our patients and our community as a generation ages and needs more care.
Without this center, more Vermonters will go without, wait too long, or leave the state for care.
The decision to move forward with an Outpatient Surgery Center is subject to review and approval by the Green Mountain Care Board, our regulator in Vermont. If we receive approval to construct the facility by summer of 2024, the $130 million construction project may be complete by the fall of 2026.
The Outpatient Surgery Center will attract leading surgical expertise.
Our Outpatient Surgery Center will employ a diverse group of highly-skilled health care providers and staff working in a leading-edge facility, which will help attract top-level surgical expertise – an issue that continues to be difficult due to a national health care workforce shortage that is especially hitting rural areas. We estimate 166 caregivers and support staff will work in the center. Of the 166 employees, 78 will be new hires. We expect this facility to be a major draw for new employees: experienced and aspiring surgeons and health care providers who want to provide top-quality care to our patients in contemporary facility designed to support today’s advanced medicine.
Click here to learn about UVM Medical Center Careers »
Our Outpatient Surgery Center is estimated to employ:
166
total caregivers
78
new hires
Learn even more about the Outpatient Surgery Center
Click here to read our Certificate of Need filing with the Green Mountain Care Board »