Lake Surgery Center is a one-story ambulatory surgical center completed in December 2002 on a “fast-track” basis, as requested by the owners. The facility includes six fully equipped operating rooms, one treatment room, and the required ancillary support services. The center anticipates performing more than 7,000 surgeries per year. The project came in on time and under budget, with the total design/build time being nine months.

While great emphasis was placed on the comfort and convenience of patients and families, providing the community with a state-of-the-art outpatient surgical facility was the key goal. Lake Surgery Center was designed to offer patients an environment unparalleled in service, technology, and support.

The architectural and design team, along with their consultants, initially met with the owners, management, staff, physicians, and their consultants to clearly define their goals and objectives. One of the driving concepts behind the design was to make visiting the facility as comfortable as possible and to eliminate patient traffic crossover. Achieving this begins with access to the medical complex, parking, and entrance canopy. Patients enter through the vestibule and are immediately greeted, registered, and provided a warm and relaxing waiting room only a few steps from the preop area. From there they proceed to surgery, postop, and discharge waiting, then finally to the patient pick-up area. A separate staff entrance lessens traffic through the patient and family areas.

Warm, subdued earth tones are accented with original artwork. Furnishings for all areas were carefully selected to promote a relaxed environment. Natural light is used throughout the facility, including patient waiting and discharge areas and central work corridors, thus providing staff with daylight throughout the course of their work.

Project category: New construction (completed December 2002)

Chief administrator: Sybil Cotten, Administrator, (225) 765-3111

Firm: Bradley-Blewster & Associates, (225) 769-7040

Design team: Brian C. Borne, AIA, Architect; James F. Witherspoon III, AIA, IIDA, Interior Designer (Bradley-Blewster & Associates); Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, C.D. Morgan & Associates, Inc.; Structural Engineering, McKee & Deville Consulting Engineers, Inc.; Suzanne McCain, PE, Chief Civil Engineer (Evans-Graves Engineers, Inc.)

Photography: Marie Constantin

Total building area (GSF): 23,385

Construction cost/sq. ft.: $184.19

Total cost (excluding land): $4,307,279

While exterior materials and color schemes were selected to blend in with the existing adjacent medical buildings, window placement and scale were designed to give the center its unique character and identity.

Constructing a medical office adjacent to the structure is under consideration. Possible future expansion within Lake Surgery Center has also been anticipated. The large-perimeter sterile corridor that serves the six existing operating rooms is designed to be converted to a double-loaded corridor that could service six additional operating rooms. Fiberoptics allow for a direct link to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, and voice/data accommodations are provided throughout the facility, including in operating suites, preop, postop, and recovery. The center is equipped with appropriate infrastructure for voice/data capacity to accommodate future technologies as they develop. Future services may include imaging facilities with overnight care for patients.

The center serves the specialties of general surgery, oral maxillofacial surgery, orthopedics, otolaryngology, plastic surgery, podiatry, and urology and maintains a full-time staff of board-certified anesthesiologists and a nursing staff with extensive hospital OR and PACU experience. Advances in anesthesia and surgical techniques have driven the rapid growth of surgical procedures. Lake Surgery Center has been designed to accommodate these services on an outpatient basis, providing a safe, cost-effective, and convenient alternative to hospital care.