Yale's Digestive Health surgery team in New Haven now has a place to call home. The new clinic, at Dana Building 2, officially opened on April 29, 2021, as a multi-disciplinary care center for the service line’s colorectal surgery, inflammatory bowel disease, and ostomy programs.
“The digestive health service line strategy was one of the first reports on my desk when I joined the Department in 2018; and the lack of space was one of the major challenges for our team, so this is a significant milestone,” said Department of Surgery Chair, Dr. Nita Ahuja.
“Truly integrated, patient-centered care has always been the vision for Digestive Health at Yale. That’s hard to deliver when the care team is geographically disconnected,” said Division Chief of Colon and Rectal Surgery and Interim Surgical Chief for the Digestive Health Service Line, Dr. Vikram Reddy.
The new building brings to fruition more than three years of strategic development, interrupted, in part, by the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessarily paused many elective digestive procedures.
“The pandemic has been challenging for all of us, but we learned some valuable lessons about collaboration, space utilization, and also the potential to leverage Telehealth in our practices to deliver the best, timely care to our digestive patient community,” said Dr. Reddy.
The YNHH building, which is the first hospital space designed specifically for the purpose of multi-disciplinary care, includes dedicated space and technology for telemedicine appointments.
“The establishment of the clinic gives our destination digestive care programs a real address and is a testament to Susan Maxwell’s advocacy for our patients, the patience and persistence of Dr. Reddy and our surgeons, physicians, staff; and the support of hospital leadership — a true collaboration.” said Dr. Ahuja.