New hospital on track to open for patient care in 2025
Vanessa Miller
NORTH LIBERTY — Two years after Iowa’s Board of Regents gave the University of Iowa permission to build a new 469,000-square-foot hospital on 60 acres of vacant land in North Liberty, regents on Wednesday donned hard hats to tour the highly-technical steel and concrete structure that has emerged from the visionary renderings they first OK’d in September 2021.
Although far from the final version that UI Health Care intends to start moving into late in 2024 — with plans to begin treating patients in 2025 — regents walked through would-be operating rooms, an emergency department vestibule, a dining space, imaging department, and a “3D rehabilitation gym.”
Read More: Photos: See inside the new UIHC North Liberty hospital
Features of that gym include high ceilings allowing for baseball and football throwing; a putting green for golf-club swinging; space for running exercises; and a medicine-ball wall for rehab-related throwing, said Mike Trehey, with the project’s contractor JE Dunn.
“Another unique feature of this area is there's a large glass door,” Trehey said. “The glass door will be able to raise, and you'll be able to have natural air coming here — when the weather allows.”
Orthopedics moving
Adjacent that rehab gym will be a UIHC sports medicine area — with administrators on Wednesday confirming “orthopedics and sports medicine will move the majority of their department's clinical, research, and educational programs to North Liberty.”
That squares with the university’s originally-aired plans to move orthopedics to the North Liberty site, noting in its first application to the State Health Facilities Council that “orthopedic surgery would account for a significant portion of the initial service mix.” Of its 36 inpatient beds, 32 had orthopedic ties, according to UIHC’s first application.
But facing criticism and pushback from community health care providers who accused the university of veering outside its tertiary-care lane — and after the state council denied the university’s first application for that reason — UIHC officials stripped orthopedic mentions from its second application, which eventually was approved.
When The Gazette in 2021 asked if UIHC orthopedics would remain central to its North Liberty plans, officials said “maybe.”
“Our plans for this facility remain flexible as we continue to evaluate and determine which clinical specialties will be offered on the new campus based on patient demand,” according to a UIHC statement provided in October 2021. “Based on this patient demand, orthopedic subspecialties may be included at the new location.”
Since that time, Iowa City-based Steindler Orthopedic Clinic has started building a new $29.3 million Steindler North Liberty Ambulatory Surgery Center, just 1.5 miles west of the UIHC hospital site.
In a news release Wednesday, UI officials noted “growing demand for orthopedic services.”
“The North Liberty location will provide an easy-to-access, drive-up location for patients with mobility challenges,” according to the university.
Lawrence Marsh, chair of the UI Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, said the goal is to “create a patient-centered, coordinated, and comprehensive approach to musculoskeletal care, building on the university’s nationally recognized research, education, and clinical care in orthopedics excellence.”
UI patients at the new site will be offered “full orthopedic, sports medicine, and rehabilitation services” — from initial clinic visits to surgery and inpatient services, as well as lab, imaging, and pharmaceutical services.
Once orthopedics and sports medicine moves from their current locations on the main UIHC campus in Iowa City, those spaces will be used to expand “other critical, complex care services, medical education, and research.”
Clean and dirty elevators
Construction managers on Wednesday said the project — near the intersection of Highway 965 and Forevergreen Road in North Liberty — is on schedule, with a grand opening set in 2025.
The university originally budgeted $395 million for the hospital, as well as additional academic, research and clinical space. But administrators returned to the board and the state in summer 2022 for approval to up the cost 33 percent to $525.6 million — given inflation, workforce, and supply chain challenges.
The university has not returned to the regents with any update on the project budget — although UI Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Rod Lehnertz said that $525.6 million represents “worst case costs,” and officials hope the final spend will be lower.
During Wednesday’s regent tour, Trehey highlighted complexities of constructing a highly-technical, state-of-the-art academic medical center hospital and clinic — equipped with innovative medical and facility technology, including a dedicated “central sterile department” equipped with designated “clean” and “dirty” elevators.
“So after they're done utilizing the tools, they take them down the dirty elevator into the central sterile, where they go through (decontamination) and ultimately clean it sterilize it,” Trehey said. “Once it gets onto the packaging side, the storage side, there's a dedicated elevator that's called the clean elevator that always stops on this floor within a clean core.
“So you're always having a clean environment for all the tools that are being utilized within the (operating room) suite.”
He confirmed the hospital includes 36 inpatient rooms, with space to add 12 more to accommodate a need; 12 operating rooms, with shelled space for more; and 83 exam rooms — again, with room to grow. The site will offer 14 emergency care rooms and two procedure rooms.
On any given day, Trehey said, the project involves 350 workers on site — with an expected peak of 425 to 450 on-site workers early next year. To date, crews have put in 630,000 man-hours.
“We believe Iowans deserve leading-edge health care close to home, and so we are doing our part to increase access for all Iowans,” newly-arrived UI Health Care Vice President for Medical Affairs Denise Jamieson said in a statement. “Once complete, the North Liberty campus will be a shining example of academic medicine at its best, advancing health care across the state and beyond. These state-of-the art facilities will allow us to achieve excellence in all parts of our mission: research, education, clinical care, and service to the community.”
Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.
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