UI eyes ‘first new road’ in years as hospital grows

IOWA CITY — Continuing an explosion in growth beyond its pending $28 million purchase of Iowa City’s Mercy Hospital, the University of Iowa this week will ask the state Board of Regents for permission to move forward with another $36.5 million in health care-related construction — including $17.5 million for a new road paving the way for a planned $1 billion inpatient tower.

“The first new road to be built on campus in more than a decade will connect Newton Road to the fountain entrance of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, a project necessary to make way for construction of the new inpatient tower,” according to the UI Office of Strategic Communication.

The 1,500 linear feet of new roadway, which will involve a roundabout, will fall between Hospital Parking Ramp 1 and the general hospital pavilion, meaning that a popular bus stop serving 500 stops a day will be relocated temporarily.

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That could create longer commute times during construction, which is expected to last several months — starting in the spring and wrapping by fall 2024.

“We understand this will mean an additional disruption for some who commute to our health care campus, but we encourage everyone to try to remember that it’s a temporary disruption that will result in significant improvements,” UI Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Rod Lehnertz said in a statement.

Once complete, the improved bus stop and loop will be able to accommodate up to five buses at once and make it easier for riders to tell which direction a bus is heading.

Burn center, neurology clinic

Among the other UIHC-related requests going before the board are asks to spend $13.5 million to renovate and expand the burn treatment center and $5.5 million to expand the university’s neurology clinic.

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“The Burn Treatment Center is one of 64 burn centers in the United States (and the only one in Iowa) officially verified by the American Burn Association to care for both adults and pediatrics,” according to the request to renovate 11,500 square feet for more burn inpatient rooms and a burn treatment outpatient clinic.

“The outpatient clinic would include a dedicated entrance, exam rooms, procedure room, waiting area and support spaces,” according to the request. “The expanded inpatient area would include new inpatient rooms, hydrotherapy rooms, staff workrooms and office space. Existing burn treatment inpatient rooms and support spaces would receive aesthetic updates.”

UIHC executives in June reported the burn unit — which debuted in 1996 — has 17 intensive- and intermediate-care beds that serve patients across Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Within Iowa, the majority of patients come from Eastern and Central Iowa.

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Children under 18 account for 30 percent of UIHC burn patients — the biggest slice of the unit’s patient pie — followed by those age 18 to 34, accounting for 23 percent. Among pediatric patients, the largest group is those 2 or younger, at 14 percent.

Common burn causes include fire, hot liquid and chemical burns. Although most burn patients stay at UIHC six days or fewer, a narrower portion stay for 31 or more days.

UIHC plans to tap patient revenue to fund the burn-unit expansion and its $5.5 million neurology clinic expansion, both of which are scheduled to start in the spring and finish in fall 2025.

For the neurology clinic, the university aims to add 11 exam rooms, conference and huddle spaces and a team workroom, helping “patients with neurological illnesses to be seen sooner.”

Property purchase

Separate from its construction goals is a UIHC request going before the regents to buy 8,810 square feet of commercial space in Bettendorf that currently houses the Radiation Therapy Center of the Quad Cities.

For $1.9 million, the university would get the property adjoining space it already leases in the same medical office building for a hematology oncology practice.

“The acquisition of Dr. (Farida) Rajput’s practice would enable UI Health Care patients to have better access to a high standard of cancer care closer to home,” according to the request. “Having a UI Health Care hematology oncology practice co-located with a radiation oncology practice would allow patients to receive a broad spectrum of cancer services in one convenient location.”

The suite the university aims to buy has a 56 percent interest in the common area of the medical office building in which it sits — built in 1999 on 1.4 acres.

“This acquisition fits with UI Health Care’s long-term goals of increasing overall access to cancer services in the Quad Cities and extending UI Health Care’s cancer clinical programs of excellence to Eastern Iowans,” according to the request.

The regents are scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday at the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls.

Expansion

The ever-expanding UIHC construction and pending purchases of Mercy and other smaller clinics aim toward the end of meeting growing demand for health care at the university — which officials report has been surging, leaving patients waiting hours to days in the emergency room for an open bed, for example.

“The lifesaving and life-changing health care provided by UI Hospitals & Clinics is in high demand,” according to UI communications, noting “many of the buildings on the UI Hospitals & Clinics campus are at or approaching 50 years of age.”

The previously announced plans for a $1 billion inpatient tower — with construction expected to begin in 2025 — will sit on a broad footprint now occupied by Hospital Parking Ramp 1, the Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Center and a water tower.

Although its design and conception are in the works, officials have said the tower would create a new “welcoming front door to UI Hospitals & Clinics.” Enabled by other massive construction projects — like those to accommodate several UI academic programs and services it footprint would displace — the new tower will feature:

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com