Kelsey-Seybold Clinic Completes $12 Million Remodel of Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC)

Kelsey-Seybold’s Ambulatory Surgery Center Now the Largest Freestanding ASC in Texas

Houston (October 26, 2017) – Today, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic unveiled a newly remodeled and expanded Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) at the Spencer R. Berthelsen, M.D., Main Campus. The ASC renovation has been an ongoing project over the last 20 months, completely reconfiguring the space to improve patient flow from the lobby to Pre-op and Recovery, as well as adding two Operating Rooms, and replacing and expanding the Endoscopy Suites and the Pain Management Suite. This $12 million capital project has added more than 10,000 square feet of usable space to the Kelsey-Seybold ASC, bringing the total square footage to over 38,000. With 15 procedure rooms, including seven endoscopy suites, seven operating suites and one pain management suite, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic now has the largest freestanding non-hospital based ASC in Texas.

“When it comes to the surgical care of conditions, the Ambulatory Surgery Center has always been the most efficient way to safely provide affordable, outpatient care. It connects the right patient, in the right setting, with the right provider using the right tools,” said Jose Nolla, M.D., Chief of Staff of the ASC and an orthopedic surgeon at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. “The completely remodeled ASC at Main Campus enhances our capabilities and capacity to safely perform procedures here that were previously done in a hospital-based setting.”

Over the past three years, the Spencer R. Berthelsen Main Campus Clinic has undergone a $50-million transformation that brought more specialties under one roof by remodeling the existing space, adding nuclear medicine, expanding the Cancer Center, adding Radiation Oncology and PET/CT to the list of services offered to cancer patients and increasing the size of the Main Campus Pharmacy and clinical laboratory to improve patient service. The ASC is the final key area to undergo a transformation.

The Kelsey-Seybold Clinic ASC can accommodate patients in need of surgical procedures including specialties of: ENT, General Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Ophthalmology, Gynecology, Orthopedics, Pain Management, Podiatry, Gastroenterology and Urology. “Patients and their employers are looking for innovative solutions that improve convenience and quality while reducing costs,” said Tony Lin, M.D., F.H.M., Chairman and Managing Director of Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. “Kelsey-Seybold’s Ambulatory Surgery Center provides patients with a venue where their specialists and surgeons can deliver the superior levels of outpatient surgical and non-surgical care in a setting where we can deliver value.”

The Kelsey-Seybold ASC administrative team worked in concert with the surgical and clinical teams to help ensure that the reconfigured and expanded space would address current needs – and help plan for the future.

“The ASC administrative team worked very closely with surgical and clinical teams to help ensure that the vision we all had for the space would improve patient flow, prioritize the comfort and privacy of our patients and deliver a working environment for our surgeons that would help create efficiencies,” said Akshay Tavkar, Director of the Ambulatory Surgery Center, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. “We believe that our collaborative effort has resulted in an ASC that we can all be proud of – we can now offer even more patients the surgical care that they need, with doctors they trust in the most appropriate setting, lowering the total cost of care.”

Expanding urologic capabilities in the ASC brought new equipment and high-definition monitors to allow surgeons to offer minimally invasive treatments of kidney stones, resection of bladder tumors as well as procedures for the treatment of urinary incontinence (male and female).

“In our state-of-the-art urology suite, we can safely do 70-80 percent of the urology cases that were formerly done in a hospital setting – that’s a huge cost-saver for our employer groups and convenience to our patients” said Dr. Benjamin Dillon, Associate Chief of Urology at Kelsey-Seybold. “For many of our patients, the ASC is the right place for them to have a procedure or surgery done – with the advances in technology, I see this trend continuing and our offerings here will continue to grow.”

Throughout this 20 – month process, the ASC remained open, maintaining surgical and non-surgical services for patients and then increasing capacity as sections of the surgery center were completed.

“It was absolutely essential to our team that we maintain the same level of service our patients have come to expect throughout this remodel,” said Glenn Landon, M.D., F.A.A.O.S., Associate Medical Director for Specialty Care, Chief of Orthopedics at Kelsey-Seybold. “Thoughtful and strategic planning as well as a close working relationship between our administrative staff and the clinical staff helped us maintain high levels of efficiency, capacity and patient satisfaction throughout the planning and construction phase.”

The Kelsey-Seybold ASC is accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC). Kirksey Architecture designed the ASC, and Gamma Construction was the general contractor for the project.

For more information about the Kelsey-Seybold Ambulatory Surgery Center, click here.