Greeley residents will soon be able to access multiple health care services at a campus to be built on 22 acres southeast of U.S. Highway 34 and 71st Street.
UCHealth is building the $185 million campus, which will offer primary and specialty care and a new 53-bed hospital, to create a seamless health care experience for residents of Greeley and surrounding areas. UCHealth also will continue to offer health care in downtown Greeley.
On the new campus, the first building to be constructed is the UCHealth Greeley Health Center, a 112,000-square-foot, three-story facility slated to open in late 2017. This medical office building will consolidate many of the services UCHealth currently provides in the community, making care more convenient for patients, according to UCHealth officials.
“UCHealth already serves tens of thousands of patients in the greater Greeley area, including thousands who travel to our other hospitals for care,” said UCHealth President and CEO Elizabeth Concordia. “Our goal is to provide the very best, advanced care close to home, and we’re proud to bring a new hospital and health center to Greeley to better serve our patients and the community.”
The health center will house urgent care and outpatient services, including primary care, oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, obstetrics/gynecology and pediatric care. Many more services, including lab, imaging and pharmacy, will be offered.
“As a primary care physician, I refer my patients to specialists when they need an extra level of care,” said Dr. Daniel Zenk, a UCHealth internal medicine physician who has been caring for patients in Greeley for more than 20 years. “But right now, that means I often have to send a patient across town to be cared for by a specialist, and sometimes to another location for additional services, like physical therapy. This new, advanced facility will offer all these services under one roof for UCHealth patients.”
In late 2018, UCHealth Greeley Hospital, a 53-bed, 153,000-square-foot hospital will open on the campus. The hospital will include an emergency department; intensive care unit; birthing center; operating rooms; imaging, pharmacy and laboratory services; radiology; respiratory therapy and a cafeteria.
“Having a large clinic physically next to a hospital — I’m pretty excited about it,” Zenk said. “It puts us in a situation where we can efficiently handle anything that may happen to our patients.”
In 2015, UCHealth cared for more than 65,000 patients in the greater Greeley area and Weld County, according to Kevin Unger, president and CEO of Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland. In the past two years, more than 6,000 patients from the Greeley area were admitted to a UCHealth hospital outside Greeley.
“We want these patients to have access to the very best medical care without leaving Greeley,” said Unger. “Being able to get medical care close to home for family and friends is not only convenient, but even more importantly, improves responses to treatments and promotes recovery for the patients we serve.”
Paul Flot, a Greeley native, and his wife drive approximately 12 miles from their home to MCR because of the great care they have grown to expect.
“We’ve both had procedures at MCR, and that’s where we wanted to continue to go because the staff was extremely efficient, kind and thoughtful,” Paul said. “It will be awful nice to have a hospital here, especially because it will be a mile from my house. Yes, a lot of it is in knowing that the services will be close, but also knowing that we’ll get the same great care we’ve always gotten from UCHealth.”
UCHealth will remain in downtown Greeley and provide a walk-in clinic, primary care services and occupational health services at its current Greeley Medical Clinic campus, 1900 16th St. In fact, UCHealth is investing $1 million to renovate the clinic to improve exam rooms, imaging and laboratory services. That project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.
On the new campus, UCHealth will provide about 300 health care positions with competitive wages and excellent benefits, and will be staffed by UCHealth’s physician group, Colorado Health Medical Group, and community physicians.
Construction — which will generate about 500 jobs at the site — is expected to begin this fall for the health center, while hospital construction will kick off in early 2017.