Intermountain Layton breaks ground on new Ambulatory Surgery Center

By Becky Ginos | becky.g@davisjournal.com

LAYTON—The Intermountain Layton Hospital campus is growing and the newest addition is an Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) that will enhance efficient and affordable outpatient surgical care in the county. Hospital administration, physicians and other dignitaries participated in a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new facility last month.

“Continual growth and success is key to what we do,” said Administrator/ CEO Scott Mortensen. “The ASC is part of the growth in the community and will provide services close to home at a lower cost. From the hospital’s perspective it just makes sense.”

“We’re excited,” said Layton Mayor Joy Petro. “Before this whole development there were hayfields here. We’re fortunate that the hospital decided to come here and purchase the property. At first they said it would be a full service hospital but then they decided to take a step back and see what the community needed. We were devastated because we thought there would be no hospital but they reevaluated and decided it would go here. The project started in 2015.”

Petro said the city let the neighbors know what was going on. “They love the hospital and what they’ve done here. Intermountain has done an excellent job analyzing what is best for the client and not necessarily the bottom line – that speaks volumes.”

The new center will be nearly 18,000 square feet with four operating rooms and is projected to be completed by 2024.

Chief Medical Officer Glen Morrell, M.D. remembers visiting his grandma where his aunt was convalescing af - ter having cataracts removed. “She had sandbags on each side of her head so she couldn’t move,” he said. “Today that can be done in a same day surgery. What a difference. If you had to have your appendix out it took three days before you could go home. If you came in now in a few hours you’d be home in your own bed.”

The ASC will maximize the recovery of patients, he said. “It also increases the value of care for patients. Healthcare is expensive especially for the middle class. This will decrease cost. It will be a wonderful thing for patients.”

“Without the overhead of a hospital, we can provide the same great care and charge about half as much,” said Mortensen. “We’ll have 23 hour stays where patients are not admitted to the hospital. We can do total joints and other surgeries because of that.”

Sixty to 70 percent of the operating volume will be done in the surgical center, he said. “That opens up more capacity for surgeries that do need to be done in the hospital.”

“Top of mind for doctors and surgeons is where patients can get the very best care possible,” said Morrell. “The number of hospital cases keeps going up. Joints, hips, knees had to be done in the hospital now that can be done as an outpatient. Infection rates are lower because you don’t have to be with sick patients like in a hospital. It’s so much easier to recover in your own bed.” l

If you’d told me 20 years ago that I’d be a yoga instructor, I’d have laughed hard enough to tear a hamstring because I was very inflexible.

I took my first yoga class as a dare. My tennis instructor laughed at how tight I was and challenged me to try yoga. I hated every minute of that stupid class. I hated the words and I hated the poses and I hated the teacher and I loathed downward facing dog with a fiery passion.

But I realized my tennis instructor was right. My muscles were as tight as two-byfours, but less bendy. So I kept going back to yoga. Hated it every single time.

After about two months of practicing yoga, I noticed, little by little, my flexibility was improving. I could almost touch my toes without the usual amount of grunting and tears. My hips didn’t scream out loud while doing pigeon pose. My shoulders dropped away from my ears, where I’d held them at strict attention for decades. Even my back stopped hurting each time I rolled out of bed.

I grudgingly had to admit yoga wasn’t the hippy-dippy dumpster fire I thought it was. But learning the poses was just the beginning. As I explored yoga’s history, philosophy and favorite recipes, I came to realize yoga was a lifestyle that encouraged, nay demanded, self-love and com-

Peri Kinder Life and Laughter

passion.

Yikes. As a lifelong subscriber to self-loathing, I wasn’t sure how to handle that type of ideology. Just like when I started the physical practice, I took lots of tiny, baby steps toward accepting myself as a worthy human.

Fast forward 20 years and not only do I teach yoga but I LOVE yoga with a fiery passion. Yoga has changed me in so many ways. I used to be sarcastic, cynical and snarky but after studying yoga for so many years, I’m a sarcastic, cynical and snarky yoga instructor.

See. People change.

I’m also much less judgmental. I’m not so hard on myself and I give most people the benefit of the doubt. Most people. Maybe someone can propose a bill that would require our legislators to take a yoga class each morning before discussing the divisive and harmful bills proposed this year. OK, when it comes to our lawmakers, I’m still pretty judgmental.

Being a yoga instructor is super silly. As an instructor, I get to say things in class that don’t make a whole lot of sense, and my students listen to me!

I’ll say, “Breathe in through your collarbones, breathe out through your kneecaps. Inhale to fill up your armpits, exhale to release tension in the ear lobes.”

Or I’ll instruct students to “Melt into the mat, send energy out of your fingertips, ground through your sitz bones, wring out your body and lengthen the crown of your head.” And I’m totally serious. (Laugh emoji)

My yoga practice has evolved from trying to do the most difficult poses and making my students sweat and swear, to focusing on deep stretches and stress-reducing breathing exercises.

It isn’t about who can be the bendy-est or the one who can hold crow pose for five minutes. It’s about appreciating what my body can do today. Not what I think it should do or what I want it to do tomorrow, but what it can accomplish right now.

I appreciate all the yoga teachers who took this rigid block of a body and mind and transformed it into a pliable, warm and accepting human being. My hamstrings thank you. l