Now, the facility is growing with the addition of a 19,500-square-foot ASC that will house four operating rooms, a dedicated recovery and prep space, and onsite sterile processing.
The new facility will focus on orthopedics, pain management, ophthalmology and urology, which all already have large footprints at Commack, Allyson Silver, assistant vice president of operations for surgical services at Stony Brook Medicine, told Becker’s.
“It has been part of our long-term strategy to really expand on the ambulatory side and to shift things from the main hospital and the ASC over to additional ASCs to free up room in our main hospital specifically for the higher acuity cases like trauma cases, neuro cases that really need to be done here in the acute care hospital setting,” Ms. Silver told Becker’s.
And this new facility is something that Stony Brook has had its sights set on for a long time.
“We have been working on this through many iterations. I think now is the time because, coming out of COVID, we have really grown a lot of our outpatient work. Patients want to be seen closer to home and away from the hospital, if at all possible. I think we, as Stony Brook Medicine, have also grown and our services continue to grow,” Ms. Silver said.
“This new expansion allows us to continue to grow and allows the patients to be seen there and for physicians to do days where they see patients in clinic and then operate the same day. It is a big satisfier across the board,” she added.
Like many other health systems, Stony Brook Medicine believes that ASCs are the future of healthcare, moving patients closer to home and often in a less stressful and more cost effective setting.
“As many patients as possible want to be seen outside hospitals. ASCs are efficient, patient friendly. They are run in a timely manner; people feel more comfortable getting care closer to spaces they are already comfortable in and closer to home,” Ms. Silver said. “We are trying to shift as much as we can. We are also trying to make room here. We have 22 ORs and we want space to grow the high-acuity spaces, and moving to ASCs is what it will take to make the room here. “