“When I started here in 2017, I started asking people why we don’t have outpatient or ambulatory endoscopy options for patients,” he said. “It’s the same care but much lower costs. For the last nine years, I’ve been asking, ‘Why don’t we have this?'”

Now, such a place exists in Ogden and is already actively serving patients.

On Tuesday, the public had a chance to celebrate the opening of the Intermountain Health Gastroenterology Center with an open house. The new center is located at the Intermountain McKay-Dee Medical Building just to the north of McKay-Dee Hospital.

“We’re on the fourth floor here,” Eliason said. “We’ve got six endoscopy suites, so it’s a big center, beautiful center — all brand new equipment; we completely gutted it and remodeled it to build this space.”

The ambulatory endoscopy center, or AEC, employs 25, according to Eliason, and features the same medical personnel that has been providing Intermountain’s gastroenterology services to the area for years. While Tuesday marked its public open house, the new center has served patients since mid-December.

“We do a lot of the same procedures  — colonoscopies, upper scopes,” he said. “It offers the same services and same care at a lower cost.”

Elaborating on the lower costs, he said:

“When you get a procedure done at McKay-Dee, it’s considered an HOPD (Hospital Outpatient Department) so the procedure is considered in-hospital,” he said. “Whereas here, it’s the ambulatory endoscopy center, AEC, so it’s outpatient and you pay a much lower cost. It’s about one-third to 25% of the costs of getting the same services done that you would (at the hospital) over here.”

Eliason said, ultimately, the type of care administered at the center doesn’t necessarily need to happen in a hospital to achieve quality results.

“A screening colonoscopy doesn’t need to be done in the hospital,” he said. “An EGD doesn’t need to be done in the hospital. These are routine procedures that we do a lot of — we do thousands of these procedures each year and they can be done in an ambulatory setting or outpatient setting.”

Having expanded lower-cost access to gastroenterology services has become especially important in recent years. In May 2021, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force lowered the recommended age for colorectal cancer screening for average-risk patients from 50-years-old to 45-years-old.

“This month is Colon Cancer Awareness Month,” Eliason said. “I think nearly all of us know someone or have been close to someone or have a friend or acquaintance that has had colon cancer. Colon cancer is common — 6% of our population will get colon cancer. It’s the third leading cause of cancer deaths in adults and it’s now the number one cancer-causing death in people younger than 45. … I think we all need to be cognizant of the importance of screening colonoscopies.”

Tuesday’s open house also celebrated the relocation of the Porter Family Practice residency program to the Intermountain McKay-Dee Medical Building after having previously been located in the basement of McKay-Dee Hospital.