The new Bone &  Joint Institute at Hartford Hospital is a 165,000-square-foot acknowledgement that musculoskeletal care in America is taking a swift, if somewhat achy, turn.

“We are living longer, working harder, exercising less,” says Dr. Stuart Markowitz, Hartford Hospital president and senior vice president of Hartford HealthCare, “and not always taking care for our bodies as we should.”

By conventional standards, the Bone & Joint Institute is a Futurama mashup of services where people can request an osteoporosis screening, sign up for a fracture-prevention clinic, watch a better-health cooking demonstration in a fully-stocked professional kitchen, have a hip or knee replacement, find mental health guidance for post-injury anxiety or depression and use the Motion Lab to get an early start on post-surgery rehabilitation with an antigravity treadmill or improve their golf swing, running efficiency or baseball pitching mechanics through computer-guided analytics.

“This is not your father’s knee and hip surgery center,” says Dr. Markowitz.


The $150 million project, a partnership between Hartford Hospital and Orthopedic Associates of Hartford, promises a holistic approach with screenings that identify modifiable risk factors such as obesity, diabetes, malnutrition, smoking, opioid use or mental health issues that contribute to orthopedic conditions or affect recovery. The Bone & Joint Institute, scheduled to open Nov. 15, will collaborate with Hartford Hospital’s Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation — regarded as one of the nation’s top training centers — to develop treatment plans modeled for specific patients.

“We’re rethinking everything orthopedic,”says Kimberley Beekmann, the clinical coordinator at the Center for Musculoskeletal Health. “Every patient is going to have a tailored plan around their entire health, not just musculoskeletal health.”

Let’s say a patient, after a  screening, is diagnosed with osteoporosis. Immediately, that patient can learn how to strengthen bones and joints in a fracture-prevention clinic.

“Did you know that if you break your hip, you’re 25 times more likely to break he other one?” says Dr. Courtland Lewis, the Bone & Joint Institute’s physician in chief.

The Bone & Joint Institute’s Inpatient Building:

  • 5 floors
  • 130,000 total square feet
  • 8 operating rooms
  • 48 inpatient beds
  • Diagnostic services
  • Outpatient rehabilitation/wellness areas, including a Motion Analysis Laboratory.
  • Public space.

The ambulatory and medical space:

  • 4 floors
  • 35,000 total square feet
  • Offices for orthopedics, rheumatology and musculoskeletal specialty care programming
  • 3 ambulatory surgery rooms.

Already, 1 million total joint replacements are performed each year in the United States. As baby boomers age, that number should increase significantly. That explains the commitment to the Bone & Joint Institute, which broke ground on Retreat Avenue in October 2014. With a little imagination and an aerial view, the Institute’s two two buildings, with curved exterior and rounded edges, can appear as bones connected by a ligament — a third-story skywalk over Seymour Street that links outpatient ambulatory care with inpatient hospital care.

The main building, with 130,000 square feet, includes eight operating rooms, 48 inpatient beds and outpatient rehabilitation-wellness areas. The ambulatory and medical space, with 35,000 square feet, includes three ambulatory surgery rooms and medical offices. Within the walls, you’ll find care built around movement (physical therapy and exercise), nutrition (weight management, healing properties, performance enhancement), mindset (challenges related to injury or condition) and improvement (overall health).

The Motion Lab also hopes to become a destination for local sports teams, coaches and sports professionals interested in improving performance, maintenance and recovery from injury.  What’s your level of fitness? Climb aboard the VO2 Max, which measures the peak rate of oxygen consumption during incremental physical activity. Find out, then consult the available physical therapists, strength coaches, sports psychologists, sports nutritionists and other specialists to learn how to get better.

“When populations are healthier,” says Dr. Markowitz,  “the cost of health care goes down, with fewer hospitalizations, fewer injuries and, most important, a better quality of life.”

For more information on the Bone & Joint Institute, click here.