Blake’s Transformation: Surgery Center Expanding

Sep. 21–BRADENTON — Blake Medical Center’s $45 million surgery center opens Friday — allowing the 32-year-old hospital to provide expanded services in an area rife with competition.

With 10 new surgical suites, Blake will be one of the largest surgical venues in the bi-county area.

In its former surgical wing, Blake performed about 6,000 surgical procedures each year, a figure that’s expected to grow by about 10 percent with the addition, said Blake spokeswoman Stephanie Glaser-Petta.

“While we will be able to do more surgeries, we’ll also be able to do more complex surgeries,” she said.

As surgical procedures become more advanced, the new technology gets bigger with more people involved, Glaser-Petta said.

Of the 10 new surgical suites, the four orthopedic operating rooms measure 630 square feet each. General surgery rooms are 473 square feet.

“These very large rooms allow us to grow with the future advances,” Glaser-Petta said.

Orthopedic, general and neurological surgeries are the most common at Blake, she said.

The existing surgery center is 32 years old and about half the size of the new 45,826-square-foot facility. Blake has more than 100 surgeons.

Surgeon and staff efficiency and patient safety improvements, as well as providing a more desirable atmosphere for patients, were objectives of the building project, she said.

“The staff is very excited,” Glaser-Petta said.

The latest addition at Blake is part of a transformation taking place at the private, HCA-owned hospital.

Immediately after vacating the old surgical wing, several department expansions will fill the void, such as the pharmacy, outpatient surgery and outpatient reception area.

A new service called Wound Care, touted as the first of its kind in the county, will also go into the old surgical wing, focusing on chronic, nonhealing wounds that are common in patients with diabetes or vascular problems, Glaser-Petta said.

Included in the $45 million price tag is a new 400-car parking garage.

Another $1.7 million will be spent on refurbishing the road between the Blake campus and the Blake Park to the north.

The Medical Arts Building at Blake, which is currently used for individual physician practices, is being evaluated for possible replacement or renovation within the next five years.

Blake officials said the 383-bed hospital was the first hospital in Florida to be designated as a green building site, where about 90 percent of the construction debris for the new addition was composed of recycled materials.

The new surgical capacity will bring Blake closer in size to Manatee Memorial Hospital, with a 44,000-square-foot 14-suite surgical center, more than 100 surgeons and 7,200 procedures performed each year, said spokesman Vernon DeSear.

“The area is very fortunate to have several large acute care hospitals,” DeSear said.

Manatee Memorial’s surgical center was built in 1992 at a cost of $17 million.

Like Blake, Manatee Memorial is building new additions of its own.

A new 180,000-square-foot patient tower with 122 private and semi-private rooms is expected to be completed at the end of 2006.

A tri-level parking garage with 560 spaces will be finished in late October.

The total cost for the project looms in the $50 million range.

Blake’s new surgical capacity falls well below that of Sarasota Memorial, an 826-bed public hospital. Sarasota Memorial’s 24 operating rooms and six additional outpatient rooms will perform an estimated 18,500 surgical procedures by the end of fiscal year 2005, said spokeswoman Ellen Simon.

Six operating rooms at Doctor’s Hospital in Sarasota performed 4,452 surgeries in 2004.

Lakewood Ranch Medical Center, which just celebrated its first year in business, has performed 1,300 surgeries in its four suites since January, said CEO Lynn Mergen.

Smaller surgical centers include Manatee Surgical Center and Gulf Coast Surgical Center, both of which perform between 4,000 and 5,000 multispecialty, outpatient surgical procedures annually.

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