WVU Medicine breaks ground on new outpatient surgery center
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – WVU Medicine officials today turned the first shovels of dirt at the site that will become a new outpatient surgery center. The $29 million facility will be built adjacent to the recently opened primary care facility – WVU Medicine at University Town Centre.
Today’s groundbreaking signifies the next step in offering care to WVU Medicine patients at more convenient locations in Morgantown and throughout the state. The new outpatient surgery center will house four operating rooms, four endoscopy procedure rooms, family waiting areas, and a café. The facility will be two stories, 60,000 square feet, and is scheduled to be completed in mid-2017.
“The services offered will provide more convenience to outpatients needing surgery and will allow us to have more space for services at the Ruby Memorial campus as well,” Amy Bush, WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals vice president of operations, said. “We will continue to focus on the more complex surgical and endoscopic cases in the hospital setting.”
WVU Medicine at University Town Centre offers clinical labs, imaging, EKG, and similar services already. Bush said moving outpatient surgeries there will create a “one-stop shop” for patients in a state-of-the-art setting.
“We’re doing this to meet the increasing demand for access to our specialty care – the kind of care you only find at academic medical centers,” Albert Wright, WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals president, said.
The West Virginia Health Care Authority approved the Certificate of Need for the facility in June.
Photo caption: (From left to right) Albert Wright, Jr., WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals president; Scott Burns, WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals project manager; Clay Marsh, M.D., WVU vice president and executive dean for health sciences; Sanford Emery, M.D., M.B.A., interim chair of the WVU Department of Surgery; Diane Lewis, member of the WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals Board of Directors; WVU President E. Gordon Gee, J.D., Ed.D.; Judie Charlton, M.D., WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals Chief Medical Officer; Stephen Tancin, WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals vice president for ancillary and support services; John C. Schrott III, president of architecture firm IKM Incorporated; and Amy Bush, WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals vice president of operations break ground for the new outpatient surgery center, which will be built adjacent to the WVU Medicine at University Town Centre primary care facility.