HEALTH & MEDICAL ON THE HORIZON

Residents of the Lakewood Ranch region enjoy the benefits of many outstanding healthcare facilities conveniently located and easily accessible to the community.

Those seeking care may access cutting-edge facilities and providers within minutes of home, from full service medical centers like HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors Hospital, Lakewood Ranch Medical Center, and Sarasota Memorial Health Care System to specialty providers such as Coastal Orthopedics and Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute and educators like LECOM.

Coastal Orthopedics is a valuable healthcare partner in Lakewood Ranch, providing more than 178,000 patient visits, 80,000+ physical therapy visits and 9.700+ surgeries and procedures in 2021 alone. And over the past year, the team has been hard at work to further enhance offerings for patients. Recent improvements include new X-ray equipment and the addition of MRI equipment at both their East Bradenton and West Bradenton locations.

Surgical services have been expanded as well. The surgery center has doubled in capacity, growing from three operating rooms to six, and has been upgraded to include such modern technologies as Stryker’s Mako for robotic knee replacement surgeries and a mixed reality headset that allows shoulder surgeon Dr. Avinash Kumar to view imaging of a patient during surgery.

Physical therapy services are growing, too. Last spring, the physical therapy department in Lakewood Ranch was relocated to a larger suite and therapy gyms were enlarged and outfitted with new equipment.

Staffing has also been increased to accommodate increasing patient volume. Several physician assistants have been added to the practice in recent months and on September 1, 2022, foot and ankle surgeon Dr. Matthew Pacana joined the physicians’ group.

For nearly 40 years, the dedicated physicians, clinicians, and staff at Florida Cancer Specialists (FCS) have been conducting innovative clinical research and providing patients with advanced treatments bolstered by innovative technologies.

In 2021 alone, FCS treated some 4,000 established patients and 1,600 new patients at its Lakewood Ranch location. The practice is currently in the process of expanding its clinic to include an additional 5,300 square feet of space and continues to enhance service offerings as well.

At present, FCS offers patients a rich array of services, from care management, lab services, medical oncology, and nutritional counseling to hematology, radiology, and palliative care. The practice also operates an in-house oral oncolytic pharmacy, RX to Go, to serve patients.

FCS also offers patients access to more clinical trials than any private oncology practice in Florida. Indeed, many new cancer drugs recently approved for use in the U.S. were studied in clinical trials with FCS participation prior to approval.

HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors North Emergency has proudly provided emergency room services to the Lakewood Ranch community 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since opening its doors in 2018. An arm of the hospital’s emergency department, the Lakewood Ranch facility treated 41,705 patients in 2021.

This facility affords the Lakewood Ranch community the latest in emergency medical technology including on-site imaging services such as CT, ultrasound, and x-ray as well as on-site laboratory services. It is a Joint Commission Certified Primary Stroke Center and 2022 American Heart Association Get with the Guidelines Stroke Award Gold Plus honoree.

The hospital also serves thousands of Lakewood Ranch residents at its main hospital campus where patients may avail themselves of such recently added services as minimally invasive/robotic technology; advanced digestive health procedures like POEMS; additional operating rooms, cardiovascular procedures like TCAR; and new women’s health treatment options like 3D mammograms and contrast-enhanced mammograms.

The Lakewood Ranch Medical Center annually serves over 75,000 patients for inpatient, outpatient, ER and diagnostic services and is constantly adding new services and staff in an ongoing effort to anticipate and meet the healthcare needs of our growing community.

In the past year alone, the Center has opened a freestanding emergency room at Fruitville that is open 24/7/365 and offers all the benefits of the main campus facility. Awarded the Acute Heart-Attack Ready Certification from The Joint Commission, the facility is fully prepared to care for cardiac patients.

In March of 2022, the Center performed its first Barostim heart failure procedure. Barostim, an implantable device like a pacemaker, is designed to address medical needs in heart failure patients when medication has not been effective in reducing symptoms and improving quality of life.

The Center made news in 2021 as well, earning that year’s ‘Leapfrog Top Hospital Award for Outstanding Quality and

Safety,’ one of just 149 nationwide chosen out of a field of more than 2,200 candidates.

Plans are currently underway for enhancements at the main campus and will be announced very soon.

From its beginning with a small osteopathic community hospital seeking to bring medical residents to northwest, Pennsylvania, to the ranch lands of Lakewood Ranch, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) has always based program development on the needs of the community.

LECOM Bradenton educates some 1600 future healthcare providers and leaders per year across four schools of study: the College of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Pharmacy, and the School of Health Services Administration (SHSA).

SHSA programs are designed for working professionals and delivered through distance education methodology, while all other Bradenton programs are based on-campus. Additionally, the School of Pharmacy offers one online-based pathway.

LECOM is particularly proud of its strategic plan to prevent disruption in the delivery of its educational programs by external factors. This planning was put into action in March of 2020 when the COVID pandemic began. Leveraging technology, the college quickly shifted courses to an on-line format for the remainder of the spring semester and successfully returned to on-campus delivery soon thereafter, allowing students complete all curricula, progress to their next year of studies, or graduate on time and advance into residencies or jobs.

Sarasota Memorial Health Care System (SMH) offers a vast network of services to patients from across the Lakewood Ranch community, supporting some 200,000 patient visits in fiscal year 2021 alone.

Administrators are constantly evaluating the needs of the community in an ongoing effort to provide the best healthcare support possible, adding facilities, services and staff as needed.

To wit: in 2020, the Radiation Oncology Center—part of the Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute—was opened at the University Parkway campus to further the system’s mission of providing greater access to comprehensive cancer care and leading-edge treatment to cancer patients on the Suncoast. This facility is designated as a Gold Standard Radiation Oncology Center by the American College of Radiology.

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That same year, Sarasota Memorial also added Interventional Radiology to the University Parkway campus, thereby allowing interventional radiologists to offer minimally invasive treatment for many conditions that once required surgery. Now, Lakewood Ranch patients can receive treatments once available solely at SMH’s main campus at a location more easily accessed from their homes.

To complement these services, SMH also installed a fixed PET/CT scanner at the University Parkway campus, a device that provides high-quality imaging with up to 35 percent improvement in clarity and resolution. This scanner allows SMH’s board-certified radiologists to identify smaller lesions and provide patients and their doctors with the answers they need to enable responsive treatment that’s unique to everyone. A second PET/CT scanner will be installed at the Health Care Center at Clark Road in the spring of 2023.

Since 2000, your generosity along with that of your neighbors and local businesses has allowed the Lakewood Ranch Community Fund to award more than $1.4 million to local nonprofit organizations — making a difference and improving lives throughout Lakewood Ranch and east Sarasota and Manatee counties. Thank you!

Give today, get involved, or learn more.

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