A new campus, vision for Baptist Health. Sneak peek at Hamburg campus to open in 2024

The MRI imaging machines have already been installed. Computers are now in post-operative rooms.

“The next four months we will be working to get furniture and other items into the building,” said Chris Roty, president of Baptist Health Lexington, on a recent tour of the more than 330,000 square foot new outpatient campus in Hamburg on Polo Club Boulevard.

By the end of April, parts of the new building — the emergency room and outpatient surgery center — will be open to the public.

Construction on the new building, which also includes a cancer center, doctor’s offices and diagnostic imaging, started in November 2020.

But plans for the new Hamburg outpatient campus have been in the works for decades.

The hospital system has owned the property since 2009. It announced in 2019 plans to expand to the Hamburg area. Hospital officials have long said the vast majority of Baptist Health Lexington’s patients are from outside Fayette County.

Because of its proximity to Interstate 75, the new ambulatory care center will be easier to get to than Baptist Health Lexington’s campus on Nicholasville Road.

The new outpatient campus will augment, not replace, the Nicholasville Road campus, said Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for Baptist Health Lexington.

“We are not moving from Nicholasville Road,” Childers said.

The new emergency room also will have observation beds that will help the hospital triage and manage emergency cases, Roty said during a tour in early December. The outpatient center will have a helipad and full-time ambulances to move more critical patients to Baptist Health’s Nicholasville Road hospital or the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital, the area’s trauma center.

The interior of the new building is moving toward completion. However, there are still finishes and other work left to complete before parts of the building open in April.

The cancer center, which will have both chemotherapy and radiation therapy, will likely open in late June. As will the dozens of doctor’s offices also located in the new complex.

An on-site cafe toward the front of the spacious building will offer food and coffee. It will have outdoor seating for patients and guests.

The new campus also has hundreds of parking spaces on the campus for easy access.

When the building is fully staffed, it will have more than 300 employees. The surgery center will have staff moving from a different location off of Man O War. Most of the other staff at the complex will be new employees, Roty said.

“Right now we are focusing on hiring for the emergency department,” Roty said.

Many in healthcare have struggled to find employees due to a nationwide shortages in key areas, including nursing. However, Baptist Health is starting to see people return to health care.

“There’s really no better time than now to work in health care,” Childers said.

But the new outpatient treatment center is just the beginning for the Hamburg campus.

Included in the original plans is a 40-bed inpatient hospital that also includes 20 observational beds to be built adjoining the outpatient center.

“We have not set a date yet on when construction will begin,” Roty said.

Years in the future, the plans also show space for other medical buildings, retail and possibly restaurants. “They will have a health-centered focus,” Roty said.

When completed, the hospital system believes the new campus will add more than 600 jobs. To find out more about careers at Baptist Health Lexington go to www.baptisthealth.com/careers/our-locations/lexington.