(MAY 22, 2024) Stephen Leffler, M.D.’90, president and chief operating officer of the UVM Medical Center, spoke with NBC5 about the benefits of a new outpatient surgery center proposed for South Burlington.
Stephen Leffler, M.D.’90, president and chief operating officer of the UVM Medical Center and professor of emergency medicine at the Larner College of Medicine
(MAY 22, 2024) Stephen Leffler, M.D.’90, president and chief operating officer of the UVM Medical Center and professor of emergency medicine at the Larner College of Medicine, spoke with NBC5 about the benefits of a new outpatient surgery center proposed for South Burlington.
Vermont’s Green Mountain Care Board is considering a request from the University of Vermont Health Network for key approval of a new outpatient surgery center proposed for South Burlington. A hearing on the certificate of need for the project was held this week.
The more than $129 million, 84,000-square-foot facility would be built on Tilley Drive. The UVM Medical Center said it should take pressure off the operating rooms at the Fanny Allen campus in Colchester as well as at the main campus in Burlington.
Leffler said a modern facility with larger operating rooms will also allow for certain procedures to be scheduled that cannot be performed at Fanny Allen, including total joint surgeries. “By 2030, without building this project, more than 4,000 Vermonters per year will either go without surgery, wait too long, or have to leave the state of Vermont,” he said in an interview with NBC5 News.
People who live in the region served by the UVM Health Network have long complained about the amount of time they have to wait to schedule surgeries. Leffler said the new facility will help it address its current backlog of cases, while also preparing for an expected increase in surgical needs that should arise from the region’s aging population.
“We’re confident in the need for the outpatient surgery center,” Leffler said. “We’re confident in the ability for this to improve access for Vermonters and people in upstate New York to care in a timely fashion.”
A decision from the Green Mountain Care Board on the request for a certificate of need is expected this summer. If it’s granted, Leffler said the outpatient surgical center could open in 2026.
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