Intermountain Park City Outpatient Surgery Center opens at Quinns Jct. Photo: courtesy of Intermountain Health

On Monday, Intermountain Health announced that Wasatch Back residents will be able to get their first full look inside the new Intermountain Park City Surgery Center, which is a joint venture partnership between Intermountain Health and The Orthopedic Partners.

The new state-of-the-art facility, located adjacent to the Park City Hospital, is an ambulatory surgery center that allows doctors to perform a wide range of same day orthopedic surgeries, with operating rooms designed for their needs.

The community is invited to a ribbon-cutting and open house from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 27. The public can tour the facility and see where surgeries and recovery take place.

“It’s incredible how far we’ve come in surgical care and this center is going to be another major step in quality health care,” said Vern Cooley, MD, orthopedic surgeon at Park City Surgery Center in a statement. “Orthopedic surgeries that used to take hours and require several nights in the hospital, now can be done in hours, with patients back home in their bed that night.”

The new Intermountain Outpatient Surgery Center is one of 15 new ambulatory surgery centers Intermountain has opened or plans to open in Utah by the end of 2024. The facility includes four operating rooms and spacious recovery rooms that patients will use after their procedures, where they can relax until it’s time to go home.

“Outpatient same day surgeries are becoming a bigger part of health care, especially as we see technology and techniques improve surgical care,” said Lori Weston, Intermountain Park City Hospital president in the statement. “By making the process more efficient we can also lower costs, which benefits our patients.”

The facility in Park City will be a vital access point for patients throughout the Wasatch Back and other nearby areas. This means they won’t have to travel as far for their surgical care. The center will also serve patients from around the world as Park City is a major destination for both tourism and elite athletes.

An ambulatory surgery center specializes in select procedures outside of a hospital setting, which allows them to be streamlined because the same procedure is done over and over. Unlike most ambulatory surgery centers, the Park City Surgery Center is unique in that it can have patients stay overnight, but it’s rare; many patients go home the same day. Because ambulatory surgery centers don’t have the same volume of staff and equipment to handle multiple overnight stays, it helps lowers the overall cost of surgical care.