A $40 million expansion at Maine Medical Center will move ahead after state regulators on Tuesday approved the plan to add five new operating rooms and create a special cardiac operating room at the Portland hospital.
The Portland Press Herald reported the hospital’s current operating rooms have a utilization rate of up to 94%, around 10% higher than the national average. The hospital wants the 40,000-square-foot expansion to help alleviate pressure at those facilities, where nearly one-third of the state’s inpatient surgeries are performed.
Dr. Mirle “Bud” Kellett, chief of the hospital’s Cardiovascular Institute, said the new cardiac operating room will reduce wait times for a heart valve repair procedure — transcatheter aortic valve replacements — given to patients who he said are “very, very ill.” The hospital is currently the only one in the state to offer the treatment, Kellett said.
