$108m medical center would offer outpatient care

Hoping to keep pace with the increasing demand for outpatient healthcare services in Essex County, North Shore Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital announced plans this week to jointly develop a sprawling, $108 million ambulatory-care center and medical office building in Danvers.

The proposed outpatient center would provide cardiac diagnostics, minimally invasive surgery, and advanced imaging services, such as mammography and ultrasound. The 115,000-square-foot facility also would serve as the new, expanded home of the medical center's oncology program, which is now operated in Peabody in partnership with Mass. General and Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare.

''The ambulatory-care center builds on a decades-long track record of successful collaboration between NSMC and MGH by putting surgical and medical experts and downtown advancements together in our community," said Robert Norton, president and chief executive officer at the medical center. ''We'll have North Shore doctors and Partners doctors working side by side to treat advanced diseases right here on the North Shore."

Both the medical center and Mass. General are members of the Partners HealthCare System.

The medical center network includes acute-care hospitals in Salem and Lynn, a facility in Danvers for women's healthcare services, a heart center on the Salem campus, and the cancer center in Peabody.

According to North Shore Medical Center officials, the cancer center has outgrown its space.

Current plans for the medical center's ambulatory-care center do not include licensed hospital beds or emergency services.

The outpatient facility is being built to complement, rather than replace, services provided at medical center's Salem and Lynn campuses, Norton said.

According to Paul Wingle, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Hospital Association, which represents the 67 acute-care institutions in the state, ambulatory-care centers are expected to play a critical role in the delivery of healthcare services as the need for medical services grows.

''As the baby boomers enter their senior years, the years in which they will have the greatest demand for healthcare services," Wingle said, ''hospitals that have the wherewithal to do so are getting ready to meet that need by focusing their resources on outpatient care that is local and convenient.

Following a national trend in healthcare, the demand for outpatient services on the North Shore is expected to increase 15 percent over the next decade -- led by a soaring need for imaging services and minimally invasive surgery -- while demand for inpatient services is expected to remain flat, according to a recent study by Sg2, an Illinois research firm that analyzes emerging clinical developments and healthcare trends.

''The development of ambulatory-care centers is a reflection of the way healthcare has changed," Wingle said.

''Because technology and knowledge has advanced, procedures that required overnight stays years ago can now be done much more efficiently, with less-invasive procedures, and in a way that meets patient demand for quick turnaround."

Norton noted that the medical center has been working for more than three years with Mass. General and their Partners HealthCare colleagues to develop the ambulatory-care center and a 50,000-square-foot medical office building.

The preferred site for the new center is the 50-acre Osram Sylvania property on Endicott Street in Danvers, just off Route 128. North Shore Medical Center is in final negotiations to lease the site long term. Those negotiations are contingent upon the approval of zoning changes that must be approved by voters at Town Meeting, which will begin Jan. 30.

The Planning Board last week reviewed the proposed zoning changes, which would allow a healthcare facility to be operated on the industrial site, and recommended that they be approved.

Northeast Health System, a rival of the North Shore Medical Center, has plans to build a similar outpatient-care facility on a 7-acre portion of the former Danvers State Hospital campus. That ambulatory-care center is expected to be about 80,000 square feet when completed and cost up to $20 million to develop. Construction is expected to begin by summer.