Exempla Lutheran Medical Center

"The outpatient zone is clearly attractive to both physicians and patients."
 
Bob Malte
President and CEO
Exempla Lutheran Medical Center
Wheat Ridge, CO

CREATING AN OUTPATIENT ZONE FOR EXEMPLA LUTHERAN MEDICAL CENTER

By creating an outpatient zone with two existing medical office buildings and constructing a third, Lillibridge has helped Exempla Lutheran Medical Center bring in more physicians and patients to its suburban Denver campus. In one critical measure, volume for the imaging center, which is housed in the new office building, is running 15 percent ahead of plan.
 
"The outpatient zone is clearly attractive to both physicians and patients," says Bob Malte, president and chief executive officer of Exempla Lutheran.
 
Maximizing Real Estate
 
Exempla Lutheran wasn't necessarily looking for such a major impact from a real estate partner when it decided to sell two medical office buildings and recruit a developer to construct a third office building that could accommodate an imaging center. The medical center was in the midst of major development — new heart center, tripling its intensive care unit, expanding its emergency and radiation oncology departments — and wanted to focus on clinical care.
 
Lutheran chose Lillibridge because of its stellar reputation and ability to do it all — buy, build and manage medical office buildings. Lillibridge immediately began exploring the best way to leverage the buildings to meet the strategic needs of the hospital.
 
The firm worked with Exempla Lutheran to rethink the location and configuration of its outpatient services, which were spread throughout the hospital and physician office space. Before Lillibridge came on board, doctors and patients routinely shuttled in their cars between the hospital, located at the bottom of a hill, and the medical offices buildings, situated on the top of the hill — and often drove between office building locations as well.
 
Zoning Appeals to Doctors and Patients
 
To better meet doctor and patient needs, Lillibridge turned the cluster of medical office buildings into a unified subcampus comprised of medical office space and diagnostic and imaging outpatient services. The firm built a two-story, 63,000 square foot new facility and renovated 81,000 square feet of existing properties. It substantially reworked the parking layout while adding new spaces. Lillibridge also connected the buildings with a covered walkway and built a healing garden.
 
The successful approach recently attracted an ambulatory surgery center, so Lillibridge is adding a two story wing to the newest office building.