Spotlight Medical Offices

Seventy percent of medical office construction projects to come on line this year will be off-campus facilities, according to R.J. Sommerdyke, vice president of acquisitions for Meridian, a developer/owner of medical real estate properties with offices in Newport Beach and San Ramon, California as well as Phoenix, Dallas and Seattle.

Despite the trend for medical centers buying acquiring and consolidating smaller doctor practices, many healthcare institutions are seeking to provide outpatient facilities to offer quicker access to care in cheaper, more streamlined ways.

"Outpatient facilities have proved efficient and convenient for hospital systems to provide care in a smaller and personable setting, which has become key because the competition between care providers has grown intense in recent years with more options for patients. . . ." according to a Nov. 18th article on GlobeSt.com.

Large providers are buying or building off-campus assets with retail-like characteristics. With so many choices of providers and emerging technologies, hospitals are finally forced to view patients as customers that need to be courted.

In the Boise area, Primary Health has been successful in continuing to grow and prosper in the shadow of St. Lukes and St. Alphonsus with a strategy of easy access and urgent care delivery. Primary Health now has 18 offices in the Treasure Valley with more planned. And St. Lukes has taken notice by purchasing a double digit percentage ownership share of this largest independent medical group in Idaho.