after searching on the Peninsula for a year, Stanford Hospital and Clinics is buying a Redwood City business park as the site for a new outpatient center. Located near Woodside Road and Highway 101, the former headquarters of the Internet company Excite@Home is expected to open for patients in late 2007.

More than 60 percent of the hospital’s patients come from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, so the Redwood City center will be “easily accessible for patients in a community we’d like to be a part of,” says Larry Carr, director of government relations for the hospital.

As doctors increasingly provide more services in their offices, Carr says outpatient care is becoming a cornerstone of today’s health care delivery. The four buildings at the center will house a range of services. “If I go there to get my knee worked on, I can also get X-rays and go to the pharmacy on-site—all in one place,” he says.

Although business and lab services have been relocated away from the main hospital campus, this is the first time entire clinics will be moved off-site. Faculty and department chairs at the hospital are still deciding which units will make the move, but early indications are that orthopedics, ophthalmology, surgery and imaging are prime candidates.

A new parking deck may be built to accommodate patients, and there will be internal improvements to turn the 360,000 square feet of former office space into clinics, but no outside structural changes will be required. What’s been dubbed the “north campus” will be getting a new name and new signage. No word on whether the giant red slide that served as a playground for Excite employees will remain.