New $4 million surgery center comes to Columbus - WTVM.com-Columbus, GA News Weather & Sports

Comfortable and welcoming, that's how the new Hughston Surgical Center wants it's patients to feel.

The Surgical Center works to provide quality care with ease and comfort for outpatient procedures.

CEO of the Clinic, Mark Baker, says a trend of more and more outpatient surgeries led to the building of the new center. "Some of your higher level surgeries that were inpatient surgeries just a year ago are now outpatient and that trend will continue to grow so  think we're poised for the future."

Orthopedic Surgeon and Vice President of the Clinic, Dr. Kurt Jacobson, says It is amazing how far medicine has come, and this center, will carry that on further. "When I first started here 30 years ago, the average stay for a patient was 5 days, that's now down to 2 days and a lot of these procedures now are outpatient procedures."

The new center has a conference room for doctors and the patient's family members, showing them electronically what just happened in surgery.

With the outpatient surgical center, patients still receive the quality they would in a hospital but with more structure, plus, it doesn't hurt the wallet nearly as much.

"The cost of delivering healthcare in a hospital we all know is much greater and the cost of delivering the same set service in a surgery center is lower." Dr. Jacobson adds, "You come in, you have time to get ready, get ready for surgery, get out of surgery, you home and then move on. Again much more efficient way to do things."