It’s an exciting time full of change and opportunity at UI Health Care. This spring, we will open the doors to the North Liberty campus, officially becoming a health system with three hospital campuses.
We asked Brad Haws, MBA, chief executive officer of the clinical enterprise and associate vice president of University of Iowa Health Care, to share more about how these new locations will impact operations on university campus and help us continue serving the health care needs of all Iowans for years to come.
The North Liberty campus is a state-of-the-art facility equipped with the latest technology and designed with patient experience at the forefront. It is truly reflective of the world-class care we provide as an institution.
Community members will have access to a new emergency department (ED) at the North Liberty campus. The ED will be home to a Level 4 Trauma Center that provides comprehensive emergency care, including advanced trauma care and life support. This additional ED will provide patients with convenient, timely access to emergency care, while improving the overall capacity, efficiency, and patient experience at the university campus emergency department.
Additionally, the North Liberty campus will have orthopedic and rehabilitation services as well as 24/7 pharmacy services, providing significant benefits to patients. Many of our orthopedics patients have mobility challenges that make navigating university campus more difficult, and the new campus will provide patients with a more convenient and accessible drive-up location to receive the most advanced and comprehensive care.
With a number of services relocating to North Liberty, it will free up space on university campus. Next week, we are requesting approval from the Iowa Board of Regents to begin planning to renovate these spaces for other services, which are still to be decided. It won’t be a quick process because we will need to gut and renovate those spaces first, but within a few years the space will once again be fully operational.
All along our aim with downtown campus was to preserve access to care in our community, and we achieved that – more than 72,000 community members received care at downtown campus in our first year of operations.
With the addition of downtown campus, we began to make the shift toward more holistic thinking as a health care system, away from a central focus on university campus. We’ve been able to create a better patient experience with coordinated care for patients who receive care at both campuses.
That being said, there is still untapped potential at downtown campus and space we can optimize to enhance our services focused on family-centered care. We are expecting to increase access to services at downtown campus in the coming years, which will in turn free up capacity at university campus.
Capacity has been constrained at university campus for years and space is in high demand. Nearly all departments have requested more space to create access for patients, conduct clinical research, and provide medical education. We need to be intentional about what we decide to put in these backfill spaces so that we can best fulfill our mission for years to come.
This is not a quick process; deciding what needs to be here on university campus and what can be located off site at other campuses is complex and involves many factors. We want to make sure we do the right thing for the future of the organization, so we are taking a holistic look at what our needs are across the entire enterprise.
Our next step is getting approval from the Iowa Board of Regents to proceed with planning for the vacated spaces. During the planning process, a committee will review new service proposals as well as space requests to help guide the decision-making process about what will go in the vacated spaces. We have access goals we need to meet as part of UI Health Care’s strategic plan, which will serve as our guidepost for this process.
It is unlikely we will have answers on how the vacant spaces will be backfilled until later this year. While we are making these decisions, we will also need to update the available space. That could take as long as 12-18 months.
Unfortunately, there are no quick solutions here, and there are more space requests than can be remedied by the newly vacated spaces alone. We continue to explore additional solutions to address the space needs of our growing system. Together we can make thoughtful plans that will benefit our entire health system and the patients we serve for years to come.