By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN / January 15, 2020
In a joint venture with nearly two dozen physicians, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center is debuting a $26.5 million outpatient orthopedic and spine surgery center, the largest expansion on the hospital’s Hartford campus in nearly a decade.
The first surgeries at the Lighthouse Surgery Center on Woodland Street, across from the main hospital, will be performed in early February; and the center expects to treat 4,000 patients a year. 
“Where science in orthopedics and joint replacements is going led to the need for a facility like this,” Michael E. Joyce, an orthopedic surgeon and Lighthouse’s president and chief executive, said. “You can do it safer, you can do it less expensively and you can get better outcomes in a way that’s more convenient for patients.”
Lighthouse builds on St. Francis’ Connecticut Joint Replacement Institute, founded a dozen years ago, and is opening a little over three years after competitor Hartford Hospital opened its $150 million Bone & Joint Institute.