Articles Tagged: University of Iowa Health Care

Navigating North Liberty will get more cumbersome once the University of Iowa completes its half-billion-dollar hospital project, according to a traffic study UI commissioned to determine what measures it should take to help mitigate congestion in the booming district.

The often congested University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics emergency room is getting a much-needed $24.6 million expansion over the next two years – enabling progress toward the big-ticket items on UI Health Care’s 10-year master plan, including a new inpatient tower, ambulatory care center, and research facility.

A former University of Iowa Health Care professor and member of the UI Cancer Center — who today is a professor and dean of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine — is the fourth and last finalist to become the next UIHC vice president for medical affairs and medical college dean.

University of Iowa Health Care on Tuesday got state approval to continue building a massive 469,000-square-foot hospital campus in North Liberty as planned – despite a more than 33 percent cost overrun, bringing the total project budget to more than half a billion dollars.

Six months after University of Iowa Vice President for Medical Affairs Brooks Jackson announced plans to resign, UI Health Care said a search committee has identified four finalists to replace him.

Well before University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics erects a new inpatient tower as part of a 10-year master plan, it is looking to spend $95 million adding two floors onto its existing inpatient tower.

Although University of Iowa Health Care recently received Board of Regents approval to up its spend on a new 469,000-square-foot hospital project in North Liberty by 33 percent to $525.6 million, the campus still needs state approval to proceed.

Among four proposals Mercy Iowa City entertained last year in its search for a new partner was one from University of Iowa Health Care offering more than $605 million to take ownership of the community hospital and make it the “centerpiece” of a new UIHC “community division.”

University of Iowa Physicians – a medical and surgical group based in its Carver College of Medicine – has agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the North Liberty wife of a patient who died in August 2015 of complications from a metastatic neuroendocrine tumor.

Recap of news from across the state

Affirming its status as the costliest hospital project in state history, the Board of Regents on Wednesday unanimously agreed to increase the budget for University of Iowa Health Care’s new facility in North Liberty by 33 percent — bringing the total price tag to $525.6 million.

News this week that Americans now have a fourth COVID-19 vaccine option – one closer to more traditional vaccines used to combat flu, for example – came about thanks, in part, to University of Iowa researchers and Iowans willing to take the experimental shot.

UI Health Care has reported a roughly $130 million increase in estimated construction costs to its North Liberty hospital campus, resulting in a 33 percent increase in its budget for the project. In all, the price tag is now more than $525 million. Hospital officials will ask for Board of Regents approval on the new budget in the July 27 meeting.

The day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – upending nearly 50 years of precedent by finding no constitutional right to an abortion exists – University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson emailed the UI community asking that the campus remains “a place for open and respectful discussion of differences.”

The state has agreed to a $7.5 million medical malpractice settlement after a 41-year-old Davenport man suffered severe life-limiting impairments following care at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for a bleeding brain tumor about five years ago.