By Dan Hounsell, Senior Editor

To address the state’s critical health care needs, University of Iowa Health Care is breaking ground on a new campus. The Forevergreen Road campus is being built to accommodate up to 48 beds, 21 emergency care rooms, 16 operating rooms and two more procedure rooms, laboratories, a pharmacy, advanced diagnostic imaging, outpatient clinics, and teaching and research space to prepare the next generation of Iowa physicians.

In addition to increasing statewide tertiary care capacity, the new campus will play an important role in addressing substantial physician shortage projected in Iowa over the next 10 years by expanding UI Hospitals & Clinics’ existing teaching capacity. Construction of the new campus is slated for completion in 2025. No state appropriations will be used to fund this project.

UI Hospitals & Clinics has seen an increased demand for its complex care services in recent years and has consistently operated at greater than 90 percent adult occupancy, even prior to the pandemic. The new Forevergreen Road campus will begin to help address capacity constraints of the UI Hospitals & Clinics’ Iowa City campus.

“We’ve been operating at a very high capacity for a long time, and our staff have been working around existing space constraints in order to provide high-quality patient care,” says Suresh Gunasekaran, MBA, CEO, UI Hospitals & Clinics and associate vice president for University of Iowa Health Care. “These new facilities will begin to reduce congestion on our main campus, improve resident education, and enhance the patient experience by providing convenient access to world-class physicians and state-of-the-art technology.”

A driving force behind the increased demand for UI Hospitals & Clinics’ services is the state’s current shortage of tertiary and quaternary care, which is highly specialized care that involves advanced procedures and treatment performed by specialists, usually over an extended period. UI Hospitals & Clinics is the state’s only comprehensive, tertiary- and quaternary-level medical center, and the additional campus will expand capacity to provide this complex care.