When Dr. Andrew Caputo underwent reconstructive surgery on his ACL 25 years ago, it was done as an inpatient procedure.
It was a hassle that required an overnight hospital stay to recover.
That knee surgery today, thanks to new technology and the healthcare system's push to move more care to lower-cost facilities, would likely be performed as an outpatient procedure, said Caputo, himself an orthopedic surgeon. So are an increasing number of surgeries like total joint replacements and some spinal procedures.
To accommodate that new reality, Caputo, along with the other 34 physicians who make up the independently owned Orthopedic Associates of Hartford, plan to open a new $30 million, 45,000-square-foot outpatient surgical center in Rocky Hill this January that will boost capacity and offer myriad services, including shoulder, knee and hip replacements.
And they aren't alone. Healthcare organizations across the state, ranging from large hospitals to independent practices, are investing tens of millions of dollars in new facilities for what is expected to be surging demand for outpatient orthopedics care.
Other examples include St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, which broke ground in September on a $26.2 million, 35,000-square-foot orthopedic and pain ambulatory surgery center in Hartford.
Rendina Healthcare Real Estate is constructing a $25.3 million, 60,000-square-foot ambulatory care center in Bristol to be leased by Bristol Hospital for orthopedic and other services. Late last year, Stamford Hospital debuted a new orthopedic surgical unit it launched in partnership with New York's Hospital for Special Surgery.
And Hartford HealthCare opened its $150 million, 130,000-square-foot Bone and Joint Institute in early 2017.
"There's been a huge change in the types of procedures that are being done as an outpatient procedure versus an inpatient procedure," Caputo said. "We have the capability of doing procedures that were previously inpatient … as outpatient."
These big-ticket investments dovetail with increasing demand for orthopedic care, which experts expect to skyrocket over the next few decades as Connecticut's and the country's population ages and lives longer. More than 680,000 total knee replacements were performed in the United States in 2014, according to the latest data from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), a 5 percent increase from three years earlier.
Total knee replacements are projected to increase by 189 percent, to nearly 1.3 million, by 2030, and shoot up to about 2.6 million in 2060, according to AAOS projections.