Orlando Health leaders, physicians, team members, and community partners came together to celebrate a major milestone in the construction of the new orthopedic medical complex currently underway on Orlando Health’s booming downtown Orlando campus. The health system staged a traditional Topping Out ceremony to mark the end of the vertical construction phase of its newest specialty hospital, the Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute. The ceremony culminated with the final placement of an 11 ft. steel beam that had been signed by hundreds of Orlando Health team members and was sandwiched between two giant replicas of a human femur bone.
“Orlando Health is thrilled to reach this milestone in the creation of our new state-of-the-art orthopedic complex,” said David Strong, president and CEO, Orlando Health. “This facility enables us to usher in the next generation of orthopedic care and expand our capacity to treat patients not just locally, but throughout the southeastern United States.”
"Today is exciting,” said Carlos Carrasco, president of Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute. “We broke ground and began construction on this major addition to our downtown campus just 13 months ago. And while there is still work to do, today’s event gives leaders from across our health system, as well as our community partners, an opportunity to visit the campus and see how the project has progressed in such a short period of time.”
The 370,000 sq. ft. institute consists of an eight-story, 197,000 sq. ft. orthopedic specialty hospital, a medical pavilion, and an attached parking garage.
The specialty hospital will provide Orlando Health surgeons and physicians with a technologically advanced facility dedicated to orthopedic medicine. It will include 75 patient beds, 10 virtually connected operating suites that can be used to train surgeons around the world, a bio-skills lab for research/education and conference space suited for hosting medical educational forums.
“This new complex will give the Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute medical team the tools needed to continue to ensure positive patient outcomes by delivering care in facilities designed specifically for the treatment, care, and rehabilitation of orthopedic patients,” said George Haidukewych, MD, chief of adult reconstruction and orthopedic trauma and academic chairman of Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute. “Coupled with our growing orthopedic residency program, this complex will expand Orlando Health’s impact in the world of orthopedics.”
Orlando Health’s orthopedic residency program has been ranked by the Journal of American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons as the fourth top academically productive orthopedic surgery program in the nation. In addition to 20 residents, which will expand to 25 by 2023, the program includes three fellowships, one each in orthopedic trauma, pediatric orthopedics, and orthopedic sports medicine, making it one of the most extensive and advanced orthopedic educational programs in the region.
“In both scale and scope, this new facility will allow our team to continue to elevate the level of sports medicine here in the region,” said Michael Jablonski, MD, orthopedic surgeon Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute. “Every orthopedic specialty, resource and service needed for the diagnosis and treatment of all levels of sports injuries, will be located here in one centralized location.”
The complex’ six-story, 173,000 sq. ft. medical pavilion will consist of an ambulatory surgery center with 12 additional operating rooms and three minor procedure rooms. It will also include a medical office building that features 63 orthopedic exam rooms, two procedure rooms, four outpatient rehabilitation exam rooms and an outpatient rehabilitation gymnasium. Imaging services, including MRI, X-Ray, and CT, as well as a retail pharmacy will also be available on-site. The attached parking garage, with up to 1000 parking spaces for patients and guests, rounds out the construction project.
“Every inch of this orthopedic medical complex was designed to meet the rapidly increasing demand for orthopedic services,” added Mr. Carrasco. “We expect the Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute to become the standard by which all other orthopedics programs will be measured.”
Construction of the medical pavilion is scheduled to be completed by Spring 2023, with hospital construction being completed by the Summer of 2023. Once fully operational, the facility will create more than 500 new permanent healthcare jobs.
Orlando Health, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is a not-for-profit healthcare organization with $7.6 billion of assets under management that serves the southeastern United States.
Founded more than 100 years ago, the healthcare system is recognized around the world for its pediatric and adult Level One Trauma program as well as the only state-accredited Level Two Adult Trauma Center in the St. Petersburg region. It is the home of the nation’s largest neonatal intensive care unit under one roof, the only system in the southeast to offer open fetal surgery to repair the most severe forms of spina bifida, the site of an Olympic athlete training facility and operator of one of the largest and highest performing clinically integrated networks in the region. Orlando Health has pioneered life-changing medical research and its Graduate Medical Education program hosts more than 350 residents and fellows. The 3,200-bed system includes 16 wholly-owned hospitals and emergency departments; rehabilitation services, cancer and heart institutes, imaging and laboratory services, wound care centers, physician offices for adults and pediatrics, skilled nursing facilities, an in-patient behavioral health facility, home healthcare services in partnership with LHC Group, and urgent care centers in partnership with FastMed Urgent Care. Nearly 4,500 physicians, representing more than 90 medical specialties and subspecialties have privileges across the Orlando Health system, which employs more than 23,000 team members. In FY21, Orlando Health served nearly 160,000 inpatients and nearly 3.6 million outpatients. During that same time period, Orlando Health provided approximately $648 million in total value to the communities it serves in the form of charity care, community benefit programs and services, community building activities and more. Additional information can be found at http://www.orlandohealth.com, or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @orlandohealth.
