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DULUTH — Essentia Health's 41,000-square-foot outpatient surgery center in the Miller Hill Mall is nearing the end stages of its construction. The Essentia Health Surgery Center-Miller Hill is anticipated to open in July.
The surgery center will open with four 600-square-foot operating rooms, with the capacity for up to 12 operating rooms to be used in the future. The facility will also have 20 private rooms for patients to use before their operations, and four 23-hour rooms for patients who need to stay a while longer after their surgery.
According to Esther Lindeman, director of the surgery center, the facility will perform operations that don't require a long stay in a hospital, and instead allow for at-home recovery. More involved surgeries, including emergency surgeries, will be done at Essentia's downtown medical campus.
“Essentia will have the new hospital, but they also will have this (surgery center) for growing needs," Lindeman said. "The community is growing, and Essentia is expanding their surgical service. We’re adding additional surgeons, so there was really a need for this type of setting."
She said having the large number of pre-operation rooms will help the facility's staff focus on patients, and not turning over rooms for the next person coming in.
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Orthopedic surgeon Jefferson Davis, chair of the division of surgical operations, said the outpatient procedures done at the Miller Hill center will include orthopedic and eye surgeries, some neurological surgeries and pediatric surgery. In the future, Essentia will likely add joint-replacement surgeries as the facility expands.
“As a surgeon, it’s always exciting to come into a place like this," Davis said. "We’re used to utilizing a facility that was planned decades ago and has limitations. Thirty years ago, when they made the ORs, they didn’t plan on the state-of-the-art equipment that we have, so it’s a challenge to get that stuff put into rooms that really weren’t made for that.”
The operating rooms will have overhead boom systems that suspend from the ceiling, leaving the floor clear for staff to move around. Ken Farrell, anesthesiologist and division chair for anesthesia, said medical staff will be able to feel a big difference, since the room is made for the large equipment and isn't just retrofitted to make things work.
"While we’re providing state-of-the-art medical care, now we’ll have two state-of-the-art facilities to go with that medical care,” Farrell said.
Lindeman said the location of the surgery center at the mall, located partially in the former Sears, is convenient for patients and their accompanying family members or friends to get to, plus it provides them with something to do while the patient is in surgery. The person accompanying the patient will receive updates via text message so they will know when it is time to pick them up.
The Essentia Health Surgery Center-Miller Hill will have a large glass lobby, laboratory and retail pharmacy. Construction at the facility began last spring, with renovations to the parking lot and 32,000 square feet of new construction.
The rest of the Sears building, which Essentia purchased in 2020, has not yet been designated a permanent use. Essentia conducted COVID-19 testing there in 2020 and 2021. The Essentia Health-Miller Hill Health Plaza at 1600 Miller Trunk Highway also houses the Center for Personal Fitness, Therapy and Performance Center and Polinksy Medical Rehabilitation Center in the former Younkers space.
