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Major new North Naples facility for the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute will be a flagship of leading-edge ophthalmic care in Southwest Florida
 
Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, part of the University of Miami’s Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, has been ranked for the last nine years by U.S. News & World Report as the top eye hospital in the United States. Now, Bascom Palmer is focusing on a major expansion of its presence in the Naples community.
 

(l-r) Dr. Eduardo C. Alfonso, Chairman, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute; Dr. Stephen Schwartz, Medical Director, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Naples; and Michael Gittelman, Executive Administrator, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.
In February, Bascom Palmer began preparing to build a $9-million facility on a 1.5-acre site at the northeast corner of U.S. 41 and Park Shore Boulevard in North Naples. Clinical services offered in the new complex, slated to open in 2015, will include comprehensive eye care as well as specialized treatments for conditions of the retina and cornea, and greater access to the latest clinical trials in these areas. Gradually, full-time physicians will be added to the roster to also offer services such as refractive surgery, glaucoma care, pediatric ophthalmology, and oculoplastic surgery.
 
Since 2004, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute has been serving the Gulf Coast from a leased 3,000-square-foot space at NCH Medical Plaza in downtown Naples which will remain open during the construction of the new center. Patient visits have more than quadrupled since the Naples center opened and now number more than 12,000 annually.
 
Bascom Palmer’s expanded regional presence, projected to encompass more than 20,000- square feet, will contain clinics for the treatment of eye diseases, as well as space dedicated to diagnostic imaging, laser vision correction, vision research, education, and an ambulatory surgery center.
 
Bascom Palmer clinical and research teams have invented many new ophthalmic treatments and surgeries now used worldwide, including the first pars plana vitrectomy and the first use of Avastin to treat age-related macular degeneration and other blinding diseases.
 
Three Bascom Palmer physicians, including Naples medical director Dr. Stephen Schwartz, currently serve the Naples area full time, and seven additional physicians travel here from Bascom Palmer’s Miami center each month. Physician numbers are projected to double by the opening of the new center, which will also employ more than 30 support staff.
 
Bascom Palmer Eye Institute’s new North Naples flagship is widely seen as a key asset in the region’s evolution as a worldwide medical destination, which could well deliver significant contributions to Collier County’s future economic growth. In the meantime, one fact is crystal clear: All of us who cherish the beauty of Florida’s magnificent Gulf Coast will now have full access to an impressive array of world-class eye care services—without leaving town.