UF Health North in Jacksonville opened the doors to its brand new inpatient tower Tuesday.
Wayne Marshall, the vice president of UF Health North, said construction has been ongoing since July 2015. The inpatient tower includes 92 private patient rooms, each equipped with a 55-inch television and interactive technology to communicate with the nursing staff.
Marshall said each of the towers’ five floors specialize in one area of inpatient procedures, with two floors dedicated to general medical inpatients, one floor to labor and delivery and one floor to intensive care.
Marshall said the expansion cost about $85 million.
“There was a need for this in the community,” he said. “The North Jacksonville community does not have a hospital.”
He said before the opening of the inpatient tower, UF Health North primarily specialized in outpatient procedures and treated more than 120 patients a day in its emergency room.
Because of the lack of inpatient rooms, patients in the ER in critical condition were transported 10 miles to the closest hospital, Marshall said.
Since the opening of the inpatient tower, UF Health North has performed three inpatient procedures and admitted nine patients from their ER, Marshall said.
He said this summer, the hospital will open its ICU and labor and delivery suites.
“We’d like to thank the community for embracing our mission up here and what we’ve been doing,” Marshall said. “This community has taken us in, and they say this is their hospital.”
Contact Catie Wegman at cwegman@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter: @catie_wegman.
UF Health North in Jacksonville
