Sneak peek inside ‘amazing’ Baptist Health Lexington’s $253 million outpatient center
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On Friday, Baptist Health Hamburg’s new emergency department was busy.
Nurses dressed in scrubs huddled over computer monitors and hospital beds.
It was an intense 50-patient simulation of what could happen come April 22, when Baptist Health’s long-awaited Hamburg outpatient campus opens at 7 a.m.
Some of the “patients” — nursing students — were experiencing major trauma, such as a heart attack. Others were having more minor issues like medication problems or bumps and bruises. The simulation was meant to teach new employees how to triage and treat patients coming to the Polo Club Boulevard outpatient facility.
For the next week, those training and education experiences will continue, said Margaret Kramer, director of Baptist Health’s education development, during a tour Friday.
The week of April 22, portions Baptist Health Hamburg’s $253 million outpatient center will open, including the emergency department, outpatient surgery center and diagnostic center.
The public is invited to a ribbon cutting and tours of the new building at 3000 Baptist Health Boulevard on Saturday, April 20. The ribbon cutting is at 10 a.m. and tours will be conducted from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The other portions of the building — a state-of-the-art cancer center and doctor’s offices — will open this summer.
On Friday, work crews were finishing final touches of the long-awaited Baptist Health Hamburg campus.
“It’s amazing,” said Chris Roty, president of Baptist Health Lexington. “We are just full of gratitude to the community and our dedicated employees.”
Emergency department, outpatient surgery to open first
The new building has a coffee bar and small cafe toward the front of the building. Parking, which can be tight at Baptist Health’s main campus on Nicholasville, is plentiful. There are more than 1,200 parking spaces around the campus.
The new outpatient campus also offers visitors and nearby residents opportunities for exercise.
The Beaumont Family Dentistry Wellness Trail, a two-mile walking trail around the property, was made possible thanks to a donation from Trish Takacs, DMD, Baptist Health Foundation Lexington campaign committee chair, whose family made a $1 million commitment toward the Onward as One campaign to provide philanthropic investment in expanding care to the Hamburg community.
Construction on the building began in November 2020, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. It took more than three years to complete the 330,000 square-foot building.
But the opening of Baptist Health Lexington’s Hamburg outpatient center has been decades in the making. The hospital purchased the 129-acre property in 2009 with eyes toward eventually expanding to the then-growing Hamburg area. The hospital announced plans for the building in 2019.
Baptist Hospital knew it needed a second location closer to Interstate 75. More than half of its patients come from outside Fayette County, Baptist Health officials have said.
Roty, a 30-year employee of Baptist Health, said that of the hospital system’s nine Kentucky facilities, the Hamburg location is the most accessible and easiest to get to.
“It’s about about serving our community,” Roty said. “This gives the people we serve accessible access to health care. It’s so much more convenient for so many people we serve.”
The new emergency room also will have observation beds that will help the hospital triage and manage emergency cases, Roty said during Friday’s tour. The outpatient center will have a helipad and full-time ambulances to move more critical patients to Baptist Health’s Nicholasville Road hospital or the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital, the area’s trauma center.
When the building is fully staffed, it will have more than 300 employees. The surgery center will have staff moving from a different location off of Man O War. Most of the other staff at the complex will be new employees, Roty said.
But the new outpatient treatment center is just the beginning for the Hamburg campus. Included in the original plans is a 40-bed inpatient hospital that also includes 20 observational beds to be built adjoining the outpatient center.
Years in the future, the plans also show space for other medical buildings, retail and possibly restaurants.
The Baptist Health outpatient center is part of a boom in development along Polo Club Boulevard between Man O War and Winchester Road. Across the street, a new Fayette County Public Schools middle school is under construction. At the corner of Winchester and Polo Club Boulevard, Cowgill is starting construction on Hamburg East, a large, mixed-use development that will likely include hotels, restaurants, retail and apartments.
University of Kentucky HealthCare announced in 2022 it would buy land from Cowgill for a new facility at that location. Plans for that property have not been announced.
