UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus is celebrating the opening of the hospital’s new tower, Anschutz Inpatient Pavilion 3. Located on the west side of the existing hospital, the 11-story tower will add much-needed patient beds and services for metro Denver including a brand new inpatient behavioral health unit.
“Our new tower will allow us to continue to provide extraordinary care for patients,” said Tom Gronow, president and CEO of the hospital. “As the Rocky Mountain region’s only adult academic medical center, University of Colorado Hospital cares for seriously ill patients with the most complex medical conditions. Thanks to our providers and staff, we have a survival rate at UCH that is 27.3% better than the national average, translating to 323 additional lives saved each year.”
The new tower is undergoing a staged opening and is expected to be at full capacity in 2024. When fully open, it will include 215 new inpatient beds, including a 40-bed inpatient behavioral health unit. There are also 10 new operating rooms and shelled space to accommodate additional growth in the future.
“Our hospital is often at or near patient capacity,” said Dr. Jean Kutner, chief medical officer at University of Colorado Hospital and professor and associate dean for clinical affairs at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
“In the last year, University of Colorado Hospital had more than 50,000 inpatient admissions and received approximately 4,000 patient transfers from other facilities. Our physicians, who are also faculty at CU School of Medicine, provide highly specialized care and access to clinical trials not offered anywhere else in the region,” Kutner said. “The additional inpatient rooms and services in the new tower allow us to meet the needs of even more patients.”
In 2019, UCHealth announced a 5-year, $150 million commitment to expanding behavioral health access for patients throughout Colorado. This includes adding much-needed inpatient behavioral health beds as well as building out a robust outpatient infrastructure by integrating behavioral health services into primary care clinics, supporting law enforcement agencies through co-responder programs, offering virtual care options for patients and partnering with the state on a program aimed at reducing veteran suicide. The new 40-bed behavioral health unit allows patients who arrive at UCH in a psychiatric crisis to receive treatment in a safe and healing, trauma-informed environment.
“Residents of metro Denver and people throughout Colorado have long needed and deserved increased access to behavioral health services,” said State Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, chair of the Colorado Senate Health & Human Services Committee.
“This new inpatient unit, combined with UCHealth’s added behavioral health services in clinics across our state, will improve the health of thousands,” Fields said.
UCHealth is committed to ensuring Coloradans have access to high-quality health care. Additional projects aimed at increasing access to care are underway at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital (PVH) in Fort Collins, which will include an expanded behavioral health unit, UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland and UCHealth Highlands Ranch Hospital.