'A huge shift' in care for Eastern IA hospitals

Mercy Medical Center broke ground on two major projects this summer — a 60,000-square-foot, three-story outpatient medical building in Hiawatha and a clinic near Kirkwood Community College — that will have urgent care and primary care services in addition to imaging and lab services. The construction illustrates a major shift in health care — hospitals pushing to care for patients outside traditional hospital walls through more preventive care, outpatient procedures and follow up services. Common surgeries such as hysterectomies, appendectomies and gallbladder removals are all now outpatient procedures while more orthopedic surgeries — those involving the musculoskeletal system — are heading in that direction, too, with the length of stay in the hospital getting shorter.