By HFT Editorial Staff

The University of California, Irvine and UCI Health have broken ground on a new medical complex. The $1.3 billion complex was approved by the UC Board of Regents in January and will include a 144-bed acute care hospital with an emergency room, an outpatient Center for Advanced Care with primary and specialty health services, a Center for Children’s Health and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care building. The new medical complex will complement the university’s flagship UCI Medical Center, which will remain in Orange.

“UCI Health is building the next chapter of healthcare in Orange County,” says Chad. T. Lefteris, UCI Health chief executive officer. “The new UCI Medical Center – Irvine will be a full-service academic medical complex bringing a broad range of the most advanced healthcare services to coastal and southern Orange County, including access to the hundreds of clinical trials underway at UCI Health.”

In addition to the 350,000-square-foot acute care hospital, the complex will feature these facilities:

• The 225,000-square-foot Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care building will offer cancer care, Orange County’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center.
• The 168,000-square-foot UCI Health Center for Advanced Care will include adult primary and specialty care services, comprehensive laboratory and radiology facilities, imaging services and urgent care. Children and adults will benefit from one-stop outpatient medical care because so many of their needs will be addressed in one facility.
• The Center for Children’s Health will provide comprehensive pediatric outpatient services, including pediatric primary care, subspecialty clinics, rehabilitation, and simulation services. In addition, the facility will advance UCI’s longstanding commitment to the region’s autism community when the Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders relocates here.

The outpatient Center for Advanced Care and Center for Children’s Health will see their first patients in early 2023, and the hospital and cancer center will open in 2025.