visited the space fre-
quently to see how the
facility was shaping up
in real life. This
allowed us to address
opportunities for
improvement that we
couldn't have noticed
by looking at the plans.
For example, the first
time we entered the
women's locker room
we realized it was way
too small. We also started thinking about the fact that we had zero extra
space for an office or an area to hold staff meetings. Fortunately, we
were able to lease another contiguous space (approximately 1,000
square feet) to accommodate an office, a conference room and a much
larger women's locker room.
We were able to move into our new surgery center in early
November 2018. We started off slowly, doing only basic procedures
(tubes, tympanic membrane repairs, and tonsils and adenoids) for the
first two to three months. This allowed staff, surgeons and anesthesia
providers to familiarize themselves with the equipment and the work-
flow. This staged development worked well for us.
After we were operational for a few weeks, we identified a couple
concerns that needed to be addressed. One was in the central sterile
area. Two large sterilizers created a lot more heat than the HVAC unit
could manage. As a result, a separate AC unit was added in that
room. There was also a heat issue in the room with the vacuum
equipment and similar adjustments had to be made to resolve that
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 3
• CALMING EFFECT An interior designer used colors and wood to make the facility
feel less sterile and foreboding to nervous patients.
Virginia
ENT
Surgery
Center