Intelisyn is currently providing project logistics coordination for the Master Plan Improvements at the UC San Diego Medical Center. Click on the link below to read about how these improvements will support UC San Diego’s goal of becoming a world-class academic medical center.
Article by Janet Lavelle April 9, 2012
UC San Diego officials brought out the champagne and ceremonial shovels Monday for a groundbreaking on the $664 million Jacobs Medical Center, but they really were celebrating something far bigger than the start of construction on a 10-story building.
University officials said they’re taking the next step on the way to their goal of being a world-class academic medical institution combining research, a school of medicine and advanced clinical care.
“We are not just breaking ground on a new building,” said Dr. David Brenner, vice chancellor for UC San Diego Health Sciences. “We’re breaking ground on the future of health care.”
That phrase — “world-class” — is heard repeatedly around the university’s Health Sciences program and, on Monday, it was picked up by others attending the groundbreaking.
“Expanding this hospital is a way to bring world-class health care to San Diego,” said Dr. William Brody, president of Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
UC San Diego “has always been extraordinarily strong in research and in cardiovascular and oncology care,” he said.
“But I think for years, the university has been hamstrung in not having enough clinical facilities to attract the very best physicians,” said Brody, who was president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore before moving to Salk in 2009. “Those physicians want to go someplace where they can develop and utilize their most advanced treatments.”
The Jacobs Medical Center will add bed space to accommodate more patients from around the country and beyond, which in turn helps in recruiting top researchers and physicians, said Dr. Mark Talamini, chair of the university’s Department of Surgery.
Established in 1960 and opening a medical school in 1966, UC San Diego has been on a steep trajectory in research and academics unparalleled by any other university in the country, Talamini said.
“We’re now number seven in total research dollars in the country,” he said. “It’s been a meteoric rise.”
The university has now embarked on a $1 billion building spree at its La Jolla medical campus to add hospital space that connects with existing and future research facilities.
Last year, UC San Diego opened the $227 million Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center next to its 119-bed Thornton Hospital in La Jolla.
Jacobs Medical Center is being built behind Thornton and will include three hospitals for advanced surgery, cancer care, and women and infant health. Its first three floors will be connected to that hospital, which also will undergo some renovations. The hospital complex is on the same campus as UCSD’s Shiley Eye Center and Moores Cancer Center, one of 41 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation.
The new center is named for Irwin and Joan Jacobs, who donated $75 million toward its construction.
Next year, the university also plans to break ground on the $269 million Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, which will develop and test new medicines and treatments. A bridge will connect the Altman center with the Jacobs Medical Center to encourage collaboration, Brenner said.
UC San Diego also signaled its ambitions earlier this year by buying the bankrupt Nevada Cancer Institute — making it the first University of California campus to buy a medical facility outside the state. University officials said at the time the purchase was designed, in part, to feed patients to San Diego and help elevate its national stature.
Meanwhile, once the Jacobs Medical Center is done, UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest will be renovated and its services limited to its trauma center, emergency room, burn center and outpatient care. The 386 beds will drop to 300 as patient rooms are converted to private, single-patient units.
Like Brody, Talamini came to San Diego from Johns Hopkins. A pioneer in laparoscopic surgery, he said the university’s expansion plan is what drew him west in 2005.
“This is exactly why I came here,” he said. “I loved Hopkins and every day I worked there. But to see the clinical piece take its place next to the research piece will catapult UCSD to a world-class level.”
To be considered “world-class,” UCSD also needs to build a destination-style hospital so inviting that patients and their families will get on a plane to San Diego, said Carlos Amato, a health care architect at Cannon Design and Cannon’s principal planner on the Jacobs Medical Center.
Amato said the vision for the hospital “is to create an environment that is transformative and provides, not only the best clinical outcomes but redefines the patient experience at UCSD.”
The building incorporates terraces and roof gardens; interior colors, textures and graphic elements will play off the surrounding natural environment.
The advanced surgery hospital on the first three floors are designed with a canyon theme; the cancer hospital on the fourth through sixth floors will evoke the ocean; a sky theme will infuse the women’s and infants hospital on the seventh through 10th floors.
Each patient room will have wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling windows with “frit” or dotted glass to control sunlight and curtains for privacy.
Patient rooms will have a smart wall equipped with entertainment components for patients, and teleconferencing capabilities for them to talk with doctors or family.
Architects also conferred with a patient advisory group. Among the members was Joan Wyllie, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008 and had surgery, chemotherapy and follow-up care at Thornton Hospital and Moores Cancer Center.
Wyllie had specific recommendations for patient rooms: high toilets and easy-access showers for post-surgery patients, better sleeping arrangements for relatives staying with a patient, meditation areas, and retractible cords so nurses spend less time untangling equipment. “I feel like they took a lot of my suggestions to heart,” she said.
Amato said the advisory group also led to a decision to provide patients and their visitors with room service-style catering.
“The food director becomes someone running a high-end restaurant,” he said. “People should say, this is the best food I ever had. That translates into, this is the best care I ever had. This will support a new culture that will differentiate them from their competition.”
Locally, that competition is most apparent by looking about a mile north, where huge cranes tower over Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla. A $456 million, seven-story cardiovascular center is now under construction there, the first piece of a 25-year program to entirely replace Scripps Memorial with new hospital towers.
But Brody said it would be inaccurate to say UCSD competes with other hospital systems in San Diego because the university has a separate mission to educate and train the next generation of physicians and pharmacists.
“UCSD trains people that will go to Sharp and Scripps and Kaiser,” he said. “UCSD makes them stronger.”
