By Dan Hounsell

Healthcare construction projects with huge dollar figures and images of large shiny facilities generally get the headlines, but for a growing number of healthcare systems, a smaller scale new construction project can help expand reach into a community.

Outpatient centers appear to be filling a discerning consumer demand and proliferating across the country, according to Medical Construction & Design. Standalone outpatient centers, outpatient centers and services integrated with hospitals and clinics in retail settings are addressing time and convenience factors for patient treatment.

Freestanding emergency departments are trending for providing care that urgent care centers cannot, and also creating system growth for outreach into communities. Many of these FSEDs provide an outpatient lab, radiology and diagnostics. Others may include an urgent care component. Still other FSEDs are sometimes positioned to grow into neighborhood hospitals with a limited number of inpatient beds after establishing a medical presence in a community.