ORLANDO, Fla., April 7, 2019 — AdventHealth, formerly known as Florida Hospital, has struck an affiliation with Orlando Hand Surgery Associates, an independent hand surgery group, to create a regional hand surgery center.
The Hand, Elbow and Shoulder Center, which will be located on Princeton Avenue on AdventHealth Orlando’s campus, will include a walk-in clinic, a surgical center, a biomechanics lab, skills and cadaver lab, a microvascular lab and teaching and rehabilitation center. Leaders expect to start a hand surgery fellowship training in 2020. The center will also include satellite offices across Central Florida.
“We’re developing a regional hand center,” said Dr. George White, president of Orlando Hand Surgery and the director of the new center. “There’s no place in the Southeastern United States that puts everything that we do together in one place.”
Orlando Hand Surgery is maintaining its independence and current location on North Orange Avenue, White said. He added that the affiliation will not result in facility fees, which are charges tacked on to patient bills by hospitals to cover the costs of maintaining a facility.
As part of the partnership, Orlando Hand Surgery will provide the medical expertise, while AdventHealth will provide the diagnostic and rehab facilities. “And we’ll joint venture the surgical center component,” White said.
AdventHealth officials said in a statement that “the nature of the affiliation is a fundamental shift in how we see our role in delivering care. We plan to build more of this kind of specialty center, which will be focused on the idea of connecting patients. We intend to reshape the way care is delivered and will partner with physicians and groups who share in that vision.”
As part of the affiliation, AdventHealth will expand physical therapy and rehab services specific to hand and upper extremity care, while Orlando Hand Surgery Associates will open satellite clinics on AdventHealth campuses.
The satellite offices are the “first most striking” result of the affiliation, White said. Patients will notice easier access to rehab and doctors near where they live, he said.
The first two of those clinics will open by summer in Celebration and Apopka, following by one Winter Garden in fall.
The goal is to expand to nine counties and eventually to more AdventHealth hospitals in Florida in the coming years.
Orlando Hand Surgery is already in full hiring mode and is planning to add six more physicians to its current roster of six.
AdventHealth officials said White prompted discussions about the affiliation.
“I think it’s going to be a world class center and I think it will be a destination place. But it’s something that’s really needed at Central Florida and has been needed actually in all of Florida for a long time.”