News Local/State

Groundbreaking Ceremony Held For New Carle-Christie Surgery Center at Curtis Rd Interchange

by Jim Meadows
 
Groundbreaking ceremony for new Carle-Christie surgery center.

Carle & Christie Clinic officials shovel ceremonial dirt at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new joint-venture surgery center and medical office complex at the Curtis Road/I-57 interchange, southwest of Champaign. Jim Meadows/Illinois Public Media

Doctors from both Carle and Christie Clinic will be treating patients at a new surgery center to be built near the I-57 Curtis Road interchange southwest of Champaign.

Officials with both organizations held a ground breaking ceremony Wednesday morning for the facility.

Christie Clinic has shared an outpatient surgery center with Carle since 2013. Christie CEO Kenny Bilger says working together is good for patients who see doctors from both organizations. And he says it’s more efficient.

“Our organization, doing one of these surgery centers ourselves, we could do that", said Bilger. "But it’s not going to be as efficient operation. It’s not going to have the size and scale that we could do jointly together.”

Carle Chief Medical Officer Matthew Gibb also hailed the cooperative efforts of the two organizations.

“We’ll have both Christie and Carle physicians practicing literally side by side in these new facilities", said Gibb. "Collaboration, consultation, you know, this ultimately is the best for the patient, to have that close proximity  in a campus-type of approach to taking care of patients.”

The new surgery center will include medical office buildings for both Carle and Christie. The $95 million project is slated to open in early 2019. It will replace the current surgery center on South Mattis Avenue in Champaign.

The facility will join the Carle At The Fields office and hotel complex, scheduled to open in 2018.