Allina opens new heart surgery center in Edina

Allina Health System is continuing its push to open more free-standing surgery centers across the Twin Cities with a new facility in Edina that's focused solely on heart patients.

The surgery center, which treated its first patient on Oct. 25, is part of an ongoing partnership between Allina and a division of Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group to open more of these outpatient facilities.

Their joint venture started with one surgery center in 2019 and will include nine centers by early 2023, said Dave Slowinske, senior vice president for operations at Minneapolis-based Allina. The goal is to provide more care in facilities that are lower cost, he said, and more convenient for patients.

"Our staffing can be more focused and efficient. Our overhead is less," Slowinske said. "Our supply costs can be more streamlined because we're taking care of a narrower set of conditions."

The new surgery center is in the Centennial Lakes Medical Center, where Allina also has an urgent care clinic as well as clinics for primary and cardiovascular care. It's jointly operated by Surgical Care Affiliates, which is a division of UnitedHealth Group's Optum division for health care services.

Earlier this year, Surgical Care Affiliates reported affiliations with more than 260 surgery centers across the U.S.

With the facility in Edina, Allina will be able to shift less-complicated cardiac procedures in healthier patients out of the hospital, said Dr. William Katsiyiannis, president of Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute. Currently, he said, there are efficiency challenges in juggling a mix of more- and less-complicated cases performed in hospital operating and procedure rooms.

"It will build capacity for those patients who need a higher acuity, higher intensity care, in the hospital where they should be," Katsiyiannis said.

The new facility in Edina is the first cardiac-only surgery center in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, he said. There's growing demand, Katsiyiannis added, for cardiovascular care.

"Going to a hospital for many patients is overwhelming," he said. "Parking is difficult. … The waiting times for your turn to get a procedure are so variable, because the cases and the complexity are so variable at a hospital. So, the experience for a patient is not to be under-emphasized."