Changes afoot at Iowa City Veteran Affairs Hospital

The Iowa City Veterans Affairs Hospital is getting a facelift.

On a Monday morning conference call with reporters, Iowa City VA officials outlined a number of construction projects at the facility, which provides services to more than 184,000 veterans living in 50 counties in Eastern Iowa, Western Illinois and Northern Missouri.

The hospital has just started construction on a new, 12,000 square-foot-treatment center, modeled after a new nationwide U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs initiative - the Patient Aligned Care Team, or PACT, model, which focuses on team-based, coordinated care.

Iowa City VA officials said the $8.7 million building will put the veteran's primary care physician, case manager, nurse and clerk in the same space, allowing veterans to touch base with the different members of their primary care teams in one location rather than at different spots throughout Coralville and Iowa City.

The project also will create a new emergency room entrance with a patient drop-off area along with 10 exam rooms and a new trauma room, officials said.

Completion of the treatment center is expected by December 2016.

In addition to the PACT building, the Iowa City's VA hospital is building a new, $7.9 million operating room suite and is nearing completion on a $9 million parking ramp expansion, which will add about 400 spaces.

The OR suite in use now was built in the 1950s, and officials said the new suite - which will include six operating rooms - will be better equipped to deal with infection control and patient safety.

The 15,000-square-foot addition is scheduled to open around July 2016.