UKnow: HealthCare, Lexington Surgery Center Partner to Expand Outpatient Surgical Services

By Kristi Willett
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Physicians and staff from UK HealthCare and the Lexington Surgery Center, along with Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton, celebrated the opening of a new joint facility at 2115 Harrodsburg Road. The new Lexington Surgery Center is adjacent to UK HealthCare Turfland.

The new site opened to patients earlier in July and is a 22,000-square-feet outpatient surgical center with six operating rooms and two procedure rooms. The center has more than 50 credentialed provider physicians including surgeons from UK HealthCare and community practices. Overall, about 8,000 surgeries are expected to be performed annually at the facility.

In August 2018, the executive committee of University of Kentucky Board of Trustees approved a plan for UK HealthCare to expand outpatient care throughout the Bluegrass and increase surgical capacity through a joint venture with Lexington Surgery Center.  UK HealthCare is the majority partner with Surgical Care Affiliates, LLC (SCA). SCA is part of the health services leader OptumCare. SCA will continue to manage the facility.

UK HealthCare needed more capacity for surgical services and moving some outpatient procedures to the Lexington Surgery Center helps improve access for patients.

By performing some lower acuity surgeries at the new site, it opens up operating rooms for complex and advanced subspecialty procedures at UK HealthCare's current on-site surgical facilities at UK Chandler Hospital, the Center for Advanced Surgery located in the Gill Heart Institute and at Good Samaritan Hospital, Newman said.

UK HealthCare surgeons in the new space at Lexington Surgery Center will perform outpatient procedures such as cataract surgery, ear tube placements endoscopic procedures and minor sports medicine and plastic surgery procedures.