Blount Memorial Hospital hopes to expand outpatient surgery space

Four consecutive months in the black have left Blount Memorial Hospital’s leaders hopeful that the fiscal year closes on a positive financial note and makes some space for expansion. One specific goal is growing an outpatient surgery center located a few hundred yards from the main building.

Interim hospital CEO Jonathan Smith noted in a board meeting Tuesday, April 23, that recent months have gone relatively well for Blount Memorial in financial terms. The hospital marked its best month in years in February, and in March also turned a profit. With a new budget year coming up this summer, Smith said, adding onto the surgery center would likely be a point of discussion.

The 10,000-square-foot outpatient center is one of two locations where hospital patients go for what are usually single-day procedures. The other, according to information on Blount Memorial’s website, is Blount Memorial’s James N. Proffitt Center for Surgical Medicine, located inside the hospital itself.

The freestanding center is a popular spot for outpatient surgery, Smith said during a tour of the facility Tuesday. “Patients really like coming here,” he commented.

But space is a constraint.

“If we had some extra rooms, we could do more in a day,” said Beverly Graham, senior director of surgical services. Some recent evidence of the need for space, she said, came with two doctors at the center — a wife and a husband — competing over available rooms.

Services

The hospital took the property on in 2015, sixteen years after it was built.

Rita Summitt, a nurse and manager at the center, told a group of hospital directors Tuesday that there had been 36 cases at the center that day. Though it was busy, the center has seen some more hectic days — Summitt said that the highest number of cases she’d seen per day at the center was 61.

“You say at home, or your guys’ wives say at home, ‘my closet’s full.’ Literally, here, we are — we’re at capacity at where we can store stuff,” she said.

Needs

The point of maintaining a separate space, Graham and Smith said in response to a question from director Chris Flynn, is to keep outpatient surgeries distinct from situations involving particularly ill patients and keep the main building’s space available for people transitioning to inpatient care. Procedure room space is also a factor.

The services the center provides have varied over the years, with tooth extractions and cataract surgery among the procedures on offer over its history. Today, the cases staff there see involve specialties like podiatry and hand surgery, among others. But past offerings are evidence that the center can accommodate some growth, Smith said.

“We have good potential to expand here,” he said.

With more space, the center could offer procedures like total joint surgeries, specifically, Graham commented.

Dr. James Franklin practices at the center and said Tuesday that the demand for an expansion exists. “I think when this was built, it was designed and placed in such a way to add on easily. I assure you, you will fill up (operating rooms) if you build it.”

Such surgeries can also support hospital revenues, he noted.