The new UCHealth Cherry Creek Medical Center is now open, bringing exceptional care from UCHealth and the University of Colorado School of Medicine specialists to the heart of Cherry Creek.

“This new health center exemplifies UCHealth’s vision for helping people live extraordinary lives by providing advanced care, close to home,” said Elizabeth Concordia, president and CEO of UCHealth. “We are focused on using innovation and technology in medicine to ensure both the best outcomes for our patients and also to improve the experience and service we provide.”

New medical center in Cherry Creek

The five-story, 97,000-square-foot center at 100 Cook St. near Denver’s Cherry Creek Mall and the beloved Cherry Creek North restaurant and shopping district provides top-notch care and the newest, safest medical technology in the convenience of a neighborhood setting.

Patients can walk or ride their bikes to the facility. If they drive, they’ll find free valet parking along with plenty of spaces in an underground garage if they prefer to park their own car.

“Patients won’t need to drive to Aurora for every appointment. This new location will provide many of the services available at the University of Colorado Hospital campus in a more convenient location,” said Robin Levy, UCHealth’s business strategist who led efforts over the past three years to develop, build and open the new center.

Expert physicians from the UCHealth Medical Group and the University of Colorado School of Medicine will care for patients at the new center. The facility also includes a state-of-the-art cancer center affiliated with the University of Colorado Cancer Center, where patients can access cutting-edge clinical trails and get care from nationally recognized specialists.

What’s more, since the Cherry Creek Cancer Center is not a hospital, most patients will not need to pay hospital facility fees. The exception will be cancer patients who are receiving infusions and radiation. These services will be comparable to those at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, Colorado’s only Comprehensive Cancer Center, as designated by the National Cancer Institute.

Along with cancer care, a robust outpatient lab, imaging facilities and a pharmacy that’s open to the public, more than 20 medical specialties will be available including neurology, urology, rheumatology, dermatology, cardiology and many others.

“We have a highly specialized, talented team of doctors,” Levy said.

Those specialists include Dr. Nina Casanova, a well-known urologist who has been practicing in the Denver area and lives in central Denver with her husband and their three young daughters.

Casanova is excited to ride her bike to work, and once in-person learning begins again, she looks forward to putting her daughters on the back of her electric bike and dropping them off at school before pedaling to the Cherry Creek center.

Dr. Casanova is thrilled to be helping launch the new center, where she will be seeing both men and women for issues ranging from urinary incontinence to prostate care and cancer screening to kidney stones and vasectomies.

“This center will allow for easy access to urology and University of Colorado-quality specialty care right in the middle of the city that can serve communities of all types,” Casanova said.

“Having so much in the same center, be it radiology, radiation oncology, oncology, infusion, urology and a surgical center, you can have one-stop shopping for everything with a streamlined flow of patient care.

“That is going to allow us to take care of people so much faster and more efficiently,” Casanova said.

On top of that, Casanova said it’s wonderful that the center is so warm and inviting. There’s a fireplace in the main lobby and colorful art and wallpaper throughout the building. The residential feel aims to soothe people whether they are dealing with routine medical appointments or a challenging illness.

“To have a center that visibly demonstrates how we want patients to feel, is really special and it incorporates the vision of what we want Cherry Creek to be: concierge-level care in an environment where we can cater to all people quickly and efficiently.”

Another popular specialty will be neurology. Seeing a neurologist at University of Colorado Hospital can take months, whereas patients should be able to get appointments quickly at Cherry Creek.

“If you have questions about headaches or need a general neurologist, you’ll be able to come here,” Levy said.

“Our rheumatology providers will be another asset for the community,” she said.

Rheumatologists help people who are dealing with complex symptoms that cause joint, muscle and bone issues along with autoimmune and rheumatic illnesses including arthritis, gout and chronic back pain.

Dr. Victoria Seligman first learned about the detective work involved in diagnosing rheumatic illnesses when her dad became sick when she was in high school. After other doctors had trouble diagnosing her dad’s rheumatic illness, a dermatologist finally figured it out.

Along with her work, Seligman loves to travel internationally and years ago helped set up the first rheumatology clinic in Cambodia.

“At the time, Cambodia was like the Wild West,” Seligman told The Rheumatologist, a publication of the American College of Rheumatology. “There was no such thing as specialty training or clinics in the country. Even now, specialty medicine is still in its infancy, despite the great strides we’ve made.”

When Seligman first visited Cambodia back in 2004, no one had smartphones or internet access. There were no dialysis machines and few doctors were comfortable prescribing complex medications. She said most of the rheumatology patients she saw in Cambodia were young women with severe lupus and connective tissue disease.

While working in Cambodia is entirely different than helping people in Denver, the same skills are vital to patients: listening intently and putting medical puzzles together so people can receive the best possible care.

Top technology and access to both plastic and cosmetic procedures from pros

The Cherry Creek Medical Center also features a full surgery center for outpatient procedures. Those seeking primary or urgent care can find it blocks away at UCHealth Primary Care – Steele Street and at CU Denver Internal Medicine Group.

Along with a talented team of providers, the Cherry Creek Medical Center features the newest technology including low-radiation mammography, a 128-slice CT, a 1.5 T MRI, a PET CT, a linear accelerator, a photo therapy booth, 3 X-ray units, a DEXA bone density screening device, a vascular ultrasound screening device for carotid arteries and veins and a full menu of cardiac diagnostic testing options.

Patients seeking both plastic surgery and non-invasive cosmetic treatments will be able to access care from the best of the best, who will be working in concert with one another. For instance, Cherry Creek’s plastic surgeon and dermatologists will work side-by-side in the same clinic.

And eye experts from the UCHealth Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center on the Anschutz Medical Campus will be providing care at Cherry Creek as well.

Dr. Sophie Liao is an ophthalmologist with fellowship training in a sub-specialty called oculoplastic surgery. She’s an expert in aesthetic and reconstructive plastic surgery around the eyes as well as orbital surgery and is also an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

At Cherry Creek, Liao expects that eyelid rejuvenation will be one of the most popular procedures.

“Whether the lid is droopy or too high, we can repair it,” Liao said.

Sometimes the lids are out of position and Liao and her colleague, Dr. Eric Hink, focus on fixes in the fragile area around the eyes.

“An upper eyelid blepharoplasty gets extra eyelid skin out of the way and helps people feel more like themselves, more refreshed,” Liao said.

“Others have ‘bags’ under their eyes and constantly are told that they look tired. We may be able to do surgery or use soft-tissue fillers to address that,” Liao said.

She and Hink also will offer cosmetic procedures such as injectables like Botox for wrinkles, fillers to add volume back to parts of the face  and laser procedures.

Cherry Creek doctors also will be providing a procedure called Mohs surgery to help patients dealing with skin cancer. Liao and Hink step in to repair the skin around the eyes after Mohs surgeons have removed cancerous cells.

They also offer consultations to patients with other eyelid and orbit concerns, such as watery eyes, eyelid lumps and bumps, blepharospasm, facial palsy, and trauma around the eye/orbit area.

Whether patients are seeking cosmetic or reconstructive procedures, it’s critical that they get care from highly trained specialists, not people who simply call themselves plastic surgeons, but haven’t spent years learning how to safely and properly care for patients.

Ambiance and expertise in one location

In addition to providing excellent, highly trained experts, Liao expects the Cherry Creek Medical Center to be incredibly popular because of both its ambiance and its location.

“This is a beautiful building with underground parking. For those who don’t want to come to the main hospital, many will like the more intimate setting in Cherry Creek, where they can get the same quality of care that we provide at a big hospital,” Liao said.

If any patients need additional care or hospitalization, doctors can send them from Cherry Creek to the Anschutz Medical Campus or elsewhere.

But Levy and many others are thrilled that patients will be able to access care in central Denver again.

“This truly has been a labor of love,” Levy said. “We have responded to the requests we have received over the years from residents who want care in central Denver. Our neighbors can’t wait to be able to walk to see their doctors.”