Inspira Health hosted an open house for its new outpatient endoscopy center, located in the Medical Office Building on its Vineland campus. With the new center open, most patients requiring an outpatient upper endoscopy or colonoscopy will experience the convenience and efficiency of a true outpatient experience. Prior to its opening, these studies and treatments were performed in the hospital’s endoscopy suite.

By moving these procedures outside of the hospital building, scheduling, parking and wayfinding are simplified. Additionally, the physicians and staff working in the outpatient endoscopy center will not have to have work around the scheduled and emergency needs of hospitalized patients. This means there are more available time slots and no delays resulting from a hospitalized patient needing an emergency procedure in the endoscopy suite.

In support of the new center, the Inspira Health Foundation donated the ownership of its former office space (two full suites) to the project. This generous donation reduced the cost of the project and allowed the center to be located in the existing Medical Office Building, which is adjacent to Inspira Medical Center Vineland.

The new facility significantly increases Inspira’s capacity to provide outpatient GI procedures and is expected to perform more than 2,100 procedures in its first 12 months of operation. It is estimated that demand for these services in the U.S. grows by one to two percent each year. To accommodate growing demand in the region, Inspira is actively recruiting for additional gastroenterologists, who specialize in the treatment of diseases and conditions of the digestive track and the organs associated with digestion. Patients with existing medical conditions and certain risk factors may still need to have these procedures in the hospital setting.

It is estimated that more than 6.1 million upper endoscopies will be performed in the U.S. this year. The procedure is used specifically to look at the esophagus, the stomach, and the first part of the small intestine. More than 15 million colonoscopies are performed annually in U.S. This procedure not only detects colon cancer, but also can find and remove polyps, eliminating the possibility of them becoming cancerous. n