Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic will soon begin construction of its new Spine and Joint Replacement Surgical Center of Excellence — the latest capital project from the region’s largest provider of orthopedics and sports medicine.

Located at 2605 Welaunee Boulevard, the 17,000 square-foot facility is modeled after a hospital environment with four operating rooms and personalized care, including private recovery rooms with private bathrooms. Construction is slated to be complete in 12 months.

“We’re just growing a lot but one of the things we’re really trying to work on is constantly improving access to care,” said Michael Boblitz, who’s been TOC CEO since September 2021. “If you pay attention to the news, hospitals are just constantly overcrowded with patients and the hospital’s job is to focus on the acute and complex care and critically ill. They’re just running out of space.”

Boblitz said the new Spine and Joint center is meant to be a “relief valve” for hospitals, who often treat spine and joint patients in their emergency rooms. In addition, he said patients won’t have to navigate crowded parking garages at the new center but rather park out front, check in and be released in a matter of hours, not days.

“We’re trying to make the experience better,” Boblitz said.

 

Significant growth in recent years

TOC was founded in 1974 by Drs. Doug Henderson and Tom Haney. They created the first dedicated medical practice for orthopedics that has evolved into a first-rate sports medicine clinic.

It has more than 30 physicians, nearly 50 physician extenders and more than 300 employees. It specializes in joint reconstruction, sports medicine, regenerative medicine, pain management, physical therapy, trauma and more.

TOC also provides official team physicians for Florida State and Florida A&M universities, Tallahassee Community College and Leon County Schools.

So far, TOC has served more than 270,000 patients this year throughout its network of locations — a 15% increase compared to previous years. Patients travel hours away in each direction to access the facility’s care.

It has locations throughout North Florida and South Georgia. TOC has made several significant capital projects, including a debut of its new Imaging Center in Tallahassee in August.

TOC has now begun using robotic surgery equipment, making it one of the few healthcare providers in the country to use the Mako SmartRobotics and the ROSA Knee System for partial and total joint replacement procedures.

TOC serves about 12,000 MRI patients each year. With a second MRI machine on hand, it allows TOC to serve 4,000 more patients per year.

“So we really need to make this investment,” Boblitz said. “We are growing, but also the patients that we already have, we couldn’t service. We’re running the one MRI 16 hours a day, seven days a week.”

 

As TOC expands its services in the capital city, it’s also expanding west with a location in Panama City that opened a year ago and another slated to open next year in Panama City Beach.

TOC Panama City is slated to have the only pediatric orthopedic surgeon in the North Florida region, along with “TOC Now” providing the region’s only orthopedic urgent care walk-in clinic.

“We’re constantly looking at this broad community that we service that has a real lack of orthopedic care in these different markets and trying to work hard on how do we take this great service we have here in Tallahassee” Boblitz said. “We want to makes sure all these populations, about a million people, across this territory have the same service.”

Contact Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com. Follow @TaMarynWaters on X.