The UC Medical Center is an ever-expanding hub of medical care, research, and education that spans nine city blocks in what is now known as the Uptown Innovation Corridor. But finding your way around, especially for patients and visitors, can be challenging.
That should change in a couple of years as UC Health plans to invest $30 million in improvements to inpatient, outpatient and parking facilities and wayfinding across its Clifton campus, a sprawling neighborhood within a neighborhood that includes University of Cincinnati Medical Center, UC Health Physicians’ Office, and the Barrett Cancer Center.
The campus includes eight buildings owned and operated by UC Health, plus shared space with the UC College of Medicine.
At UC Medical Center, plans call for the main lobby, emergency department, underground tunnels, and many inpatient units to be upgraded over the next two years.
Wayfinding signs will be updated and improved throughout the campus so visitors and employees can more easily get around.
“The care that we provide to our patients is complex, but their experience with us shouldn’t be,” said Dr. Richard Lofgren, UC Health president and CEO. “We need to make it easier for patients, visitors, and employees to navigate our campus.”
They should be able to more easily find it too, as the plans call for a distinctive, LED-lit beacon atop UC Medical Center that will clearly identify the hospital and the Clifton campus.
Also planned is a new wrapped-style façade for the medical center’s main parking structure to enhance what is, for many, the main entrance to the Clifton campus.
The two-year project will be the latest in a series of major investments at UC Health.
In 2017, officials broke ground on the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute, a $60 million expansion in neuroscience care. The four-story facility is expected to open in April 2019 and will provide outpatient care, clinical trials and research, as well as space for multidisciplinary care teams to collaborate.
In 2016, UC Health began investing in patient care space in the Ridgeway Tower at 3200 Burnet, formerly the UC Health Business Center. This culminated in the opening of a 26-bed inpatient unit in January 2019, a $22 million project that will create 63 new jobs. UC Health now provides 92 patient beds in the Tower, and officials say additional growth is expected.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.