“This was a necessary addition for Meadville Medical Center,” said Dr. Peter White, chairman of the surgical advisory committee, during Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the new $10 million outpatient services center on Grove Street.

“This will bring our outpatient facility up-to-date and allow us to provide even better quality of care for our patients,” he said.

The 9 a.m. event kicked off construction of a 17,500-square-foot addition

that is slated to house new outpatient preparation and recovery facilities for services currently performed in other areas of the hospital, according to Duane Koller, director of marketing at MMC.

The new space provided by the addition is to increase hospital productivity by mobilizing patients closer to outpatient services. A second goal is to provide a warmer, more caring environment through utilizing natural lighting instead of fluorescent which is currently found in the facilities located in the building’s basement.

The expansion of the outpatient facility was first proposed about two years ago and was included in a larger plan that would have also incorporated space for a pain clinic, eye center and transitional care unit, but those plans were scaled back and will be considered for other potential construction projects in the future.

According to Koller, the medical center is financing the renovations through a capital fund drive through Meadville Medical Center Foundation which also helped fund the hospital’s new $12 million Oncology Wellness Institute at 16792 Conneaut Lake Road in Vernon Township. That center, which takes a whole-person approach to cancer and healing through both traditional non-traditional methods, opened May 6 and offers specific state-of-the art treatments, as well as nutrition education, art and music therapy for patients and their families.

Meadville has seen a steady increase in surgical procedures both at its Grove Street and its Liberty Street buildings, according to Koller. In 2007, there was a 9 percent increase in the number of surgeries. Hospital officials expect that in 2008 it will see an additional 5 percent rise.

“In the past, Meadville has performed between 5,000 and 6,000 surgeries each year,” Koller said. “That number is expected to grow to about 10,000.”

Nationwide, numbers also are expected to rise in outpatient surgeries into the next decade as the baby boomer generation ages.

The outpatient facilities project follows a very profitable year for the hospital. After operating at only slightly better than “break-even” status in fiscal year 2006, profits jumped to $6 million in 2007, giving MMC a money-making ranking that was bested by only one other medical facility in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Penni Schaefer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at pschaefer@meadvilletribune.com.