University of Colorado Hospital: Healthcare City
University Hosp.
Written by Amanda Gaines   
Tuesday, 01 January 2008
University of Colorado Hospital: Healthcare City - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Bruce Schroffel discusses the significance behind moving this academic hospital.

Bruce Schroffel believes there is no reason patients should ever have to leave Colorado for their healthcare needs. And he is not alone, which is why in June 2007, University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) successfully completed its move to the Anschutz Medical Campus.

University of Colorado Hospital: Healthcare City - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Bruce Schroffel, President and CEO
“A vision for quality and excellence drove us to build this campus here, and the Anschutz Foundation gave us the financial start to provide a comprehensive and high level of academic and clinical services for the Rocky Mountain Region, and indeed the entire country,” said Schroffel, president and CEO of UCH. “Together, we are creating one of the best healthcare cities in the world.”

In addition to a new and much larger facility for UCH, Anschutz Medical Campus includes the Rocky Mountains Lions Eye Institute; the Anschutz Cancer Pavilion; the Anschutz Outpatient Pavilion; the Anschutz Inpatient Pavilion; and the University of Colorado Denver’s graduate school, faculty office buildings, research facilities, and schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry—as well as room for growth.

“This consolidated healthcare city synthesizes the research, education, and care we want to provide to the entire country,” said Schroffel. “The Anschutz Medical Campus is a gem for healthcare.”

Turning it around
The original motive behind UCH’s move was an aging facility. Located in Central Denver, the first facility was built in the 1950s on a small campus that did not facilitate expansion. In addition, community engagement had progressively diminished.

When Schroffel was appointed president and CEO of the hospital in 2006, much of the planning for the new campus had already been completed. His task: facilitating the six-mile move. Because UCH is an academic hospital, the majority of its patients are acutely ill. Patient volumes remained consistent throughout the transition, and during the course of the move, UHC staff moved roughly 150 patients, and 26 babies from the NICU, from Denver to Aurora.

“For a short time, we were running two facilities at once, which meant the equipment and workflow at the new facility needed to run as smooth as it was at the old facility,” said the CEO. “We had 100 committees and about 1,000 people working to ensure the patients were never at risk and that each employee knew where they were going as they transitioned to the Aurora campus.”

Teams of employees, physicians, and administrators would arrive at the Denver location, and also on the Anschutz Medical Campus, as early as 5:30 a.m., review the situation, and go through a checklist of 20 or 30 items at each site to ensure everything was in order before moving a patient. In addition to moving patients, employees had to ensure the equipment and furniture was in order and that signage was in place so both patients and fellow employees knew where to go and what do to.

Schroffel said the actual move was textbook, but the post move posed real challenges. “We were overwhelmed with the number of new patients coming to the hospital,” he said. “Rather than 225 two-bed rooms, we now have 380 single-bed rooms. Things like delivering food and getting specimens to the lab became much more complicated because we were in a larger facility.”

At the same time, some of the hospital’s care teams had been combined to increase efficiency and quality and cut down on redundancies. While employees were learning how to handle new co-worker relationships, they were also learning how to get into the building, find their cars, and maintain the same level of quality expected of UCH. “We turned most of it around in the first three months, but they were challenging times,” Schroffel said. “The new facility, however, is well worth it.”

Just the beginning
When employees, physicians, and patient-care teams at UCH were given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of helping design the new facility, all groups agreed the hospital needed to be designed for patient and family-centered care. Consequently, the hospital’s design marries patient privacy with clinical efficiency.

Rather than one centralized nursing station, a small computerized station is located between every two rooms. Nurses can now check on their patients without having to disturb them. Each room has a place for family members to stay overnight, and the atmosphere, architecture, and patient areas were designed to not resemble a hospital.

“The design elements were meant to accomplish two things,” Schroffel said. “First, we wanted to enhance the collaboration and interdisciplinary work with the patient, physicians, and staff. Second, we didn’t want this to feel like a hospital, and it doesn’t. Mr. Anschutz donated a great deal of art to line the hallways, and the lighting and colors are much warmer than what you’d expect from an academic hospital.”

People have noticed the difference. UCH continues to serve its Denver and Aurora populations, but patients are coming from other areas, including the entire state of Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Kansas. But even before the move, the hospital was known as one of the nation’s best. US News & World Report ranked it as one of America’s best hospitals, it is a Magnet-designated facility, and NIH (National Institute of Health) ranks it in the top 10 of US public universities.

Despite the amount of improvement UCH has seen in the past few years, Schroffel views this as just the beginning. The hospital’s position on the Anschutz Medical Campus puts it in a better position to collaborate on and improve its programs.

“We are very good, but we’re not as good as I’d like to be,” he said. “I don’t want to be in the top 20 for NIH; I want to be number one. We’re recruiting on a national level to bring a higher level of distinction to the hospital’s, as well as the university’s, clinical and educational programs.”

 
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