Geisinger has opened its latest facility project in Centre County with goal of providing more services and shorter wait times to local patients.
The Geisinger Healthplex State College, 132 Abigail Lane in Patton Township, began welcoming patients earlier this month to offices in its new 20,000-square-foot expansion. The $12 million project provides two floors of new and larger space for pediatrics, orthopedics and imaging alongside the array of other services offered at the Gray’s Woods health center.
Dr. Michael Sobolewski, orthopedic surgeon and regional director of orthopedics, said the expansion came as services have grown and the health system evaluated how to best serve the community in its western region, which encompasses the State College and Lewistown areas.
“For patient need and access, the outfit that we have here at our Gray’s Woods location in State College really has been grown out over the years,” Sobolewski said. “We’ve been expanding services. And so needing to improve access for patients to a multitude of subspecialists that we now offer, the expansion project came about.”
With offices, 41 exam rooms and a surgical suite, the Healthplex offers orthopedic specialities including spine, total joint, sports medicine, hand, along with podiatry and non-operative sports medicine in conjunction with a fully staffed urgent care clinic.
“We’ve probably tripled our size as far as a clinic access for patients, improving our urgent care access, which is a six-day-a-week operation, but also for multiple subspecialists to treat those here in the community and serve as a referral source for our primary care providers,” Sobolewski said.
New to the operating room is the Mako robotic arm, the first of its kind among Centre County healthy systems, according to Geisinger. Used at the Healthplex for knee replacement surgeries, it allows for a level of precision that can result in faster recovery time longer-performing joints.
With the technology, surgeons create a three-dimensional surgical plan with a CT scan that provides a full-leg analysis from hip to ankle. That plan can then be precisely adjusted by the millimeter as needed during the surgery, with Sobolewski noting that the surgeon is in complete control of the saw.
More accurate placement during robotic assisted surgery helps make for a longer-lasting prosthesis and less post-operative pain, Sobolewski said.
“Some of the soft tissue balancing, you can negate or minimize. Because of the robot, you can dial in within millimeters, little subtle changes, which allows it to be more accurate when we’re handling these types of cases and executing them in the hopes that when we place these implants that they can last longer, that’s more specific to the patient’s appropriate alignment, less soft tissue damage,” he explained. “We try to minimize the amount of bone resection we perform, so it’s more bone conserving in most cases. And that will allow the potential for a faster recovery for a patient.”
On the second floor of the addition, pediatrics occupies a larger space with a fresh look and new features.
Upon entering, the office has designated waiting areas for well and sick patients, who have differing pathways through the clinical area.
“I think having the dedicated well and sick space is a newer concept and something that we were able to accommodate that families really appreciate, said Dr. Joy Drass, vice chair of outpatient general pediatrics.
Families will also immediately notice a brighter atmosphere with a nature theme adopted throughout, something that will be put in place at the Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital in Danville as well.
“Everyone seems really appreciative, complimentary of the welcoming environment,” Drass said. “It’s lighter and brighter, more cheerful for our pediatric patients, but in a way that’s comforting. It’s kind of nature-based as opposed to cartoon-based, which is comforting for not only the well patients, but those who might be sick or a little bit of the adolescent population as well. It’s a little more universally welcoming.”
The department also has negative pressure rooms for infectious disease concerns.
Perhaps most importantly, though, is the expanded space, with more exam rooms and the ability to accommodate multiple specialties.
“We have dedicated space for our psychologists and our child psychiatrists as well as some dedicated space for some of the pediatric specialists that come out to us from Danville,” Drass said. “We have the benefit of getting some subspecialty services a couple times a month, things like pediatric cardiology or gastroenterology, general surgery. All of those can come see patients here so they don’t have to travel as far and we have sort of a dedicated environment for them.”
The Healthplex expansion is the second major Geisinger facilities project to open in the last three months.
In November, the health system began welcoming patients to the new 22,923-square-foot Geisinger Medical Clinic Bellefonte at 226 Buckaroo Lane. The $15.5 million project brings together under one roof a variety of primary care services, dermatology, imaging and lab services, as well as a ConvenientCare Clinic slated to open there this year.
Those projects are part of a recent health care boom in the county.
Penn Highlands opened a new $90 million hospital and medical office building at 239 Colonnade Boulevard in Patton Township in July. Nearby, Mount Nittany Health opened its own new $90 million facility in August: a 125,000-square-foot outpatient center at Toftrees West.
Mount Nittany also opened its first walk-in clinic at 2051 S. Atherton St. last spring. Its largest project — a $350 million, 10-story patient tower at the medical center — is under construction and slated for completion in late 2026.
