Healthcare: New Additions at Inova Fair Oaks
Hospital opens medical office building, parking garage
Inova Fair Oaks Hospital has some new arrivals, but they don’t need to be burped or changed. These new additions are a four-level, $21 million, medical office building and a $17.1 million, five-level, energy-efficient and security-monitored, 950-space parking garage.
On the second floor of the office building is a 23,209-square-foot Ambulatory Surgery Center. It’s for outpatients and contains four operating rooms plus physicians’ offices. It’s already up and running, and John Fitzgerald, senior vice president, Inova Health System, and CEO, Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, couldn’t be happier.
“Our two, existing office buildings are full; so when new doctors came, there wasn’t a place for them,” he said. “Completion of this building enables us to keep pace with physician demand for office space on our campus, while better serving the needs of our area’s growing population.”
The new medical office building is at 3620 Joseph Siewick Drive, and its outpatient surgery center is a joint venture between participating surgeons and Inova. In 2008, doctors at Inova Fair Oaks performed more than 12,000 surgeries in 10 operating rooms. Now there are 14 total operating rooms on campus.
“It’s been well-received by both patients and doctors, and we’re all delighted about that,” said Fitzgerald. “We want to keep this campus consistent with the idea of a — a high-quality medical center serving the community.”
The new medical building opened this summer and is convenient and close to patients’ homes and also the parking garage. Said Fitzgerald: “We’ll put in an outpatient diagnostic center on the first floor, in the first quarter of 2010, plus a physical-therapy office and a spine-care center.”
He said the surgical center will offer mostly scheduled, elective operations — the kinds of surgeries that “make sense for quick turnovers” — with patients going home, the same day. Procedures could include putting tubes in ears, plastic and cosmetic surgery, orthopedic surgery, knee repairs, carpal-tunnel surgery, urology and laparoscopic gallbladder removal.
“It gives us more capacity upstairs for inpatient surgery,” said Fitzgerald. “We do a lot of spine, bariatric [for the morbidly obese], hip and knee surgeries.”
Todd McGovern, area vice president of growth for Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, said many surgeons want to work at this hospital. “In a comparison of 300 hospitals across the country, physicians chose us as the best place to practice medicine, in terms of patient safety, quality care, and staff and administrative cooperation,” he said.
“It’s very prestigious to have such a groundswell of enthusiasm from the physicians,” said Fitzgerald. “It’s a great vote of confidence.”
THE OUTPATIENT SURGICAL center is considered a separate entity from the hospital, but patients may be referred to the hospital, if necessary. McGovern said doctors also appreciate the new facility’s convenience for them. For example, he said, “Physicians can see patients in the new medical building in the morning and then do surgeries in the hospital in the afternoon — and they don’t have to drive across Northern Virginia to get to the hospital. Everything’s in one location.”
Sheree Lopez, administrator of the Ambulatory Surgery Center, is also pleased. Giving a tour of it, she said, “There are no overnight stays. Today, we did a back surgery and the patient went home. We can do general surgery, such as hernia repairs, or breast lumpectomies.”
She said a majority of the patients will come from orthopedic surgeons. “We have lots of sports-medicine physicians on hand,” said Lopez. “We’ll do, for instance, arthroscopies, in which a scope is put in to see problems with joints — elbows, knees, shoulders — and repair them. One physician did three of them today.”
Some of the surgeons are based in the new building, but most aren’t. “The beauty of this center is that, when patients go to a hospital, they often think, ‘I’m sick,’” said Lopez. “But when they see a freestanding building, they think, ‘I’m well; I’m just going in for a repair.’ So we treat them that way and encourage them to wake up quickly and do the majority of their recovery at home — because you feel better when you’re home.”
She said detailed instructions are given to the adult caregiver on what to look for and how to treat the patient at home. So, said Lopez, “We do a lot of education in the process. We also bring families to the pre-op area and the recovery area, as soon as possible, because we find patients recover much quicker once they see their families. For our pediatric patients, one parent can go into the O.R. with them and hold their hand or rub their head while they go to sleep. Then the parent leaves, but the child goes to sleep and wakes up calm, and the parents feel better, too.”
The new surgery center has been a dream of Fitzgerald’s for 10 years, and Lopez said the surgeons are also happy because it opens up more operating-room time in Northern Virginia. Similarly, said hospital spokeswoman Susan Tulino, “It’s a great benefit to patients who don’t have to wait as long to schedule major surgeries in the hospital.”
THERE ARE THREE procedure rooms, plus two phases of recovery rooms. Phase one is for patients who’ve had a general anesthetic and need to be monitored while they recover. In phase two, patients may sit up, have ginger ale and crackers and be visited by friends and family.
Certified Surgical Assistant Adrian Jones calls it a nice, well-run place. “This is on the cutting edge of medicine, right now, because everyone wants in-and-out procedures,” he said. “And it’s a safe environment — we follow the same standards and procedures the hospital does.”
“Everyone’s well-trained,” said Linda Frix, clinical director of nursing. “And so many of us have worked together before, so we have plenty of experience and it’s a great team.”
Jones said the staff can give special attention to details that may get lost in a hospital because of time constraints. “And it’s reflected in the post-op phone calls when we hear from patients about their care,” added Frix. “Our focus is patient satisfaction and positive outcomes.”
Dr. Rick Layfield, an orthopedic surgeon from Clifton, agrees. “I’m excited to be able to practice in a friendly environment close to home,” he said. “This is the kind of surgery I do — outpatient surgery — and these are my patients, and it’s good to be able to bring them here.”
By Bonnie Hobbs for Centre View
