UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, Calif., has broken ground on a $3.74 billion expansion that includes a 14-story hospital tower and a five-story medical pavilion.
The new tower will add nearly 1 million square feet of space to the existing medical center. It will include new operating rooms, an imaging center, facilities for pharmacy and burn care units, and about 334 private patient rooms.
More than 250 of the rooms are being designed for greater flexibility in the event of a patient surge such as a pandemic, wildfire or other disaster. These will easily convert into intensive-care-unit rooms with air isolation to treat patients of any level of hospitalization.
"We are building into this new tower some of the lessons we learned from the recent pandemic. As an example, three out of four of the rooms in this new tower can be easily converted to fully functional ICUs if needed, tripling our ICU capacity," UC Davis Health CEO David Lubarsky said in a July 22 news release.
The current, 646-bed hospital will have between 675 and 700 inpatient beds when the project is completed in 2030.
"This project further harnesses the advantages of UC Davis Medical Center being Sacramento's No. 1 hospital and delivering nationally ranked care," Mr. Lubarsky said. "UC Davis Health is Sacramento County's second-largest employer, and we're making sure we are bringing not only healthcare, but jobs and community wealth-building to our surrounding neighborhoods."