Surgeons on deck to see patients at St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville

Indy Southside Surgical will soon move into a new office suite at St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville.

The office will be opened Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will serve as the primary office for Mark Edwards, M.D.; David Mandelbaum, M.D.; and Mathew Libke, M.D., will see patients there part-time. They will be located in the Professional Center at the hospital, 1203 Hadley Rd., Mooresville.

The general surgeons perform digestive tract, colon and rectum, breast and gall bladder procedures. Also, they remove skin and subcutaneous lesions and repair all types of hernias. Many of the procedures are minimally invasive, using laparoscopic techniques.

Plans call for the surgeons to begin seeing patients in Mooresville in late February.

The new surgical practice comes at a time as the Mooresville hospital nears completion of a $42 million expansion. The project is expected to be completed in mid-April and includes more private patient rooms, new surgery suites, an intensive care unit and expanded laboratory services.

The Mooresville hospital also will offer a new emergency department and a new medical office building for the Center for Hip & Knee Surgery, scheduled for opening in the second half of 2008.

Indy Southside Surgical also maintains an office on the St. Francis Hospital-Indianapolis campus at 5255 E. Stop 11 Rd., Suite 450.

Hospital expansion brings more services close to home; Open house set for April 19

Two years after construction began, the hard hats will come off, and the new $42 million expansion project at St. Francis Hospital–Mooresville will be open to the public. The grand opening in April 2008 will be the next step in transforming St. Francis–Mooresville from a specialty hospital into a full-service community health care facility.

The grand opening will feature several special events, including a festive open house, providing tours and other attractions for the general pubic, on April 19 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The next week, the hospital will open its new eight-bed intensive care unit, six state-of-the-art surgical suites and new inpatient orthopaedic and medical/surgical nursing units. These new units will offer private patient rooms, complete with computer connectivity and additional space for family and other visitors.

A major feature of the expansion is a large three-story atrium stretching from the main entrance into the heart of the hospital. Skylights will fill the atrium with sunlight, and this new corridor will provide easy access to a variety of services. This main hall will be flanked on the north with a gift shop and coffee café, surgery waiting area and lab, while the south side will allow easy access to admitting, radiology and the new offices of the Indiana Heart Physicians.

Also in the plans are rooftop gardens, visible from patient rooms and other areas of the expansion, which are designed to create a calming, healing space for patients and visitors.

The hospital will mark two other milestones in the second half of 2008, with the opening of the first emergency department in northern Morgan County and the Center for Hip & Knee Surgery’s new medical office building adjacent to the hospital. The medical building also will house the hospital’s IMPACT Center, physical therapy department and other outpatient ancillary services, as well as a new conference center.

Many employees and physicians have taken hard-hat tours to familiarize themselves with the new areas, and staff in all departments are preparing for the changes that will occur in new patient and community areas to make the transition as smooth as possible.

This expansion is part of the ongoing eight-year investment in high-quality health care services for Morgan, Hendricks and southwestern Marion counties and will increase the size of the hospital from 258,000 square feet to roughly 400,000 square feet.

Our mission to meet the health care needs of the communities we serve is central to our St. Francis ministry. This project is a major investment in the area’s health care, making it possible for residents to receive additional medical services closer to home.