Dive Brief:
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The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) received a $500 million commitment from the Helen Diller Foundation to help the university build a new hospital at their Parnassus Heights campus. The family of the late Hellen Diller has donated more than $1.15 billion to UCSF.
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The money will allow UCSF Health to start the planning process for a new facility to open before 2030 at the newly named UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights complex.
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Patients on the Parnassus Heights campus currently receive care at a 15-story hospital with 600 beds at the Moffitt and Long Hospitals and an ambulatory care center.
Dive Insight:
UCSF Health must relocate inpatient care from Moffitt Hospital by 2030 to conform with California seismic code requirements. In its long-range development plan in 2014, UCSF planned to build a new hospital at the site of Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics, which will move to another location in 2020.
Mark R. Laret, president and CEO of UCSF Health, said the donation will “enable us to accelerate the planning process for a hospital at Parnassus Heights that meets the high demand we experience at UCSF for the comprehensive care we provide.”
Laret said the new facility will bring in new technologies, such as telemedicine, robotics and intra-operative imaging. He added the building will create “a tranquil and patient-centered environment that will best meet both the medical and non-medical needs of our patients, visitors and staff.”
While other health systems and hospitals are paring back or re-utilizing inpatient space for outpatients services, UCSF and others are planning for new facilities. Cleveland-based MetroHealth is building a new facility, transforming nearly half of its main campus into open space and connecting to the multi-use Towpath Trail and other amenities.
UCSF promotes its new facility as a “tranquil and patient-centered environment,” while MetroHealth’s focus is on environmental improvements and health. Regardless of the overarching focus, both projects involve hospitals eying their bottom line as well in the age of decreasing in-patient beds. Hospitals must now figure out how to maximize outpatient services, while also offering facilities that go beyond medical care.