Baltimore Washington Medical Center is adding three new operating rooms that will enable its doctors to perform more complex neurosurgeries and orthopedic surgeries. Those services will be needed as baby boomers age and the county gets an influx of new residents.
The $31 million expansion will be completed in September,
BWMC spokesman Kevin Cservek says.
The money for the new OR rooms comes from a bond sale from the University of Maryland Medical System, which BWMC is a part of, and the 321-bed hospital's fundraising efforts.
The 27,500-square-foot addition will give it a total of 17 operating rooms. As part of the construction, the hospital will add three empty rooms that will give it the space to add surgery equipment to those spaces if there is demand in the future, Cservek says. Hospital officials believe they will see this demand.
One of two hospitals in Anne Arundel County, BWMC is close to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. The county is expected to handle more patients as more residents move to the area because of the Pentagon's Base Realignment and Closure. And as the baby boomers age, they will need more hip replacements and so forth, Cservek says.
The expansion will help BWMC transition from being a community hospital to a regional medical center, he says. The hospital plans to renovate 16,000 square feet of existing operating room space as part of the expansion.
Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Kevin Cservek, BWMC