This year marks the 25th anniversary of Johns Hopkins at Green Spring Station, and it introduces a new chapter of ambulatory care with the opening of one of the largest ambulatory surgery centers in the state of Maryland.
Located in Lutherville, the 110,000-square-foot facility constitutes the suburban campus’s third pavilion, which will house a specialty-services consultation space and an outpatient surgery center. Featuring five operating rooms and four procedure rooms, it will offer adults and children a range of same-day surgeries in areas such as general surgery, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, gastroenterology, plastic surgery, gynecology and urology. The building also will include larger outpatient suites for departments such as radiology, medical oncology, urology, otolaryngology and facial plastic surgery, and a new musculoskeletal center featuring orthopaedics, pain management, and physical medicine and rehabilitation services. It is scheduled to open in stages beginning May 28, with the outpatient surgery center set to open in September.
The move embraces a trend in health care to provide care in the least expensive setting, explains plastic and reconstructive surgeon Patrick Byrne, medical director of the new ambulatory surgical center.
“A lot of data has come out, especially in the last decade, about the high quality of surgery performed at free-standing outpatient surgical centers,” he says, “and it’s delivered at a fraction of the cost.” Depending on their medical needs, some patients may still be referred to The Johns Hopkins Hospital or Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center for their surgical care, he says. Sophisticated analytics programs will help determine which patients will be best served in the new facility.
The outpatient surgery center will take up most of the building’s third floor, with 38 pre- and post-surgical beds, says Gill Wylie, president of Johns Hopkins Medical Management Corp. The third floor will include an outpatient suite for urology — the first time urology services will be offered at Green Spring Station.
The second floor will house a musculoskeletal center, space with 36 exam rooms, three X-ray rooms and a rehabilitation gym. Also on the floor will be comprehensive otolaryngology–head and neck surgery services and facial plastic surgery suites with 10 exam rooms, two allergy testing rooms, two audiology booths, five procedure rooms, a speech-language pathology room and two aesthetician rooms.
The first floor will feature a full radiology suite with three MRIs, a CT scanner, four mammography rooms, three ultrasound rooms, two general radiology rooms and, for the first time at Green Spring Station, interventional radiology, as well as prep and recovery areas, Wylie says. A medical oncology suite sharing the floor will have nine exam rooms, 19 infusion bays and an oncology pharmacy. The space also will house a laboratory and presurgical evaluation center.
Green Spring Station has been a popular location with “explosive growth” since Johns Hopkins took over Pavilion I in 1994, and Pavilion II in 1996, says Wylie. Since 2000, Johns Hopkins has been slowly leasing any available space on the campus, including many office areas above the shops, leaving some departments spread out. Relocating some services to Pavilion III will help them function more cohesively, he says.
Additional Johns Hopkins medical services and departments will backfill spaces being vacated in Pavilions I and II, says Wylie. This includes expanding the Wilmer Eye Institute and its surgery center; gynecology/obstetrics women’s services and the reproductive endocrinology/in vitro fertilization program; dermatology, including Mohs surgery and phototherapy; and primary care. The plan includes making the campus more pedestrian-friendly, and building a path from the new pavilion to the shops, Wylie says.