UCSF Health is moving forward with a $4.3 billion project to build a new hospital that will be significantly larger and designed with innovative care in mind, officials said.
UCSF Health plans to build a new $4.3 billion hospital. The 15-story facility is scheduled to open in 2030. (Image courtesy of UCSF Health (rendering: © Herzog & de Meuron)
The new 15-story Helen Diller Hospital is planned to meet existing needs for more specialized care and anticipate future increases in demand.
Suresh Gunasekaran, president and chief executive officer of UCSF Health, said the new hospital is “perhaps the most impactful investment in the history of UCSF Medicine.”
“This is based on the idea that if you really want to provide state-of-the-art care to your patients, you need the facilities, equipment and space to provide it,” Gunasekaran said in a UCSF Health video. .
The new hospital is actually just one part of a broader effort to transform UCSF Health's flagship Parnassus Heights campus.
UCSF Health said it is moving forward with a 30-year plan to rebuild its campus. In addition to the hospital, the project also calls for the construction of a large research building on the west end of campus.
UCSF President Sam Hawgood said the hospital and new research building “will truly be the iconic bookends of the new campus.”
Officials held a groundbreaking ceremony for the project on April 27, attended by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and San Francisco Mayor London Breed, among others.
Hawgood said UCSF Health doesn't want to tackle building upgrades without a cohesive vision.
“We have stepped back and spent several years reviewing a comprehensive master plan to give ourselves and our successors a blueprint for what this campus needs to look like over the next 30 years. “I decided to do it,” Hawgood said at UCSF Health. video.
The new research and academic building is scheduled to open in 2028. The new hospital he plans to open in 2030.
UCSF health officials said the new hospital will provide treatment options for thousands more patients.
The hospital will have 682 beds, a 37% increase over its current capacity. The new hospital will have 31 new emergency beds, increasing capacity by 71%.
The new hospital will also have 21 new operating rooms, which will allow for more precise surgery. The new suite will have access to MRI and other imaging equipment.
Dr. Edward Chan, UCSF chair of neurosurgery, said the new operating room “will be the future of our field.”
“We have an integrated operating room with access to MRI scanners and angiography imaging equipment that allows us to perform surgeries in a safer way and allows us to perform surgeries in a more minimally invasive way. '' Chang said in a UCSF Health video. “We really think this is part of the future of how we customize surgery to each individual's brain.”
The system says the new hospital will offer the latest diagnostics and robotics for complex specialty care.
UCSF Health is also investing $20 million in public transportation improvements near its Parnassus Heights campus.
The scheme also plans to create 1,000 union jobs and aims to hire 30% of construction workers from local communities.
UCSF Health has been making ambitious moves in recent months.
In February, UCSF Health announced an agreement to acquire two hospitals from CommonSpirit Health in a $100 million deal. Under the agreement, UCSF Health will acquire St. Francis Memorial Hospital and St. Mary's Medical Center from Dignity Health, a CommonSpirit company.
The two organizations hope to complete the deal by spring 2024. Once the deal is complete, the two hospitals will be known as UCSF Health St. Francis Hospital and UCSF Health St. Mary's Hospital.
