UCHealth aiming to open new Broomfield hospital this month
BROOMFIELD — The closed blinds in patient rooms obstructed the sunny mountain views from the second floor of UCHealth’s new Broomfield hospital on Tuesday. It’s not that anyone was objecting to the light, but rather part of a tornado drill during which beds are also wheeled into the hallways.
The exercise was just one of many drills and orientation activities that employees have gone through in recent weeks as the new 22-bed facility, dubbed simply UCHealth Broomfield Hospital, gets set to open. Pending final approvals from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, UCHealth officials are hoping to open the hospital at 11820 Destination Drive by the end of this month, though they don’t have a specific day etched in stone yet.
The 80,000-square-foot hospital, a partnership between UCHealth and Texas-based Adeptus Health, will employ roughly 150 people.
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“Everybody here has worked at other hospitals,” Derek Rushing, CEO of the hospital, said in an interview. “But not everybody has gotten this opportunity to open something on Day 1. We’ve got an opportunity to make this hospital our own.”
The facility’s opening is being anticipated not only by UCHealth as the health-care system’s only hospital along the booming U.S. 36 corridor, but also by Broomfield officials and developers of the Arista development, of which the new hospital is a part.
“We know we’re definitely looking forward to them being part of the Arista community and the spinoff development that will happen because of that,” Broomfield economic development director Bo Martinez said, noting that the city doesn’t have any specific projections for the number of indirect jobs the hospital might support.
Joe Zepeda, senior project manager for Arista developer Wiens Capital Management, said the hospital is definitely causing other businesses to take a look at locating in Arista. He said he fully anticipates the hospital to attract ancillary medical users, or even a medical office building, in Arista as the hospital establishes its presence. But more immediately, he’s interested to see the boost the hospital gives to the retail aspects of Arista. On the 18-acre site just to the west of the hospital, at the southeast corner of Wadsworth Boulevard and 120th Ave., Wiens is planning 30,000 square feet of retail space and 20,000 square feet of professional office space that the company is hoping to break ground on early next year.
“I think the hospital and future things that come around the hospital will certainly help us as we start leasing up the commercial retail side of the development,” Zepeda said.
While UCHealth Broomfield Hospital is opening with only 22 licensed inpatient beds, a finished third floor provides room to more than double to 50 licensed beds as demand warrants.
“We have the ability to grow into that pretty quickly if we need it,” Rushing said.
In addition to the 18 medical-surgical rooms and four intensive care unit rooms, the new hospital will include three operating rooms, a 24-hour emergency room, a full imaging suite including a CT scanner and digital x-ray, a lab and cafeteria.
The hospital likely serves as a sneak preview of the hospitals UCHealth has in the pipeline in Longmont and Greeley, albeit on a smaller scale than those two. The lobby resembles something one might encounter upon entering a nice hotel, while details in the inpatient rooms like stone-tiled walls and showers in the bathrooms help provide a more at-home feel.
A “diet ambassador” will visit inpatient rooms personally each day to visit with patients about their diet needs and take orders for their meals, the type of detail not always possible at larger facilities, Rushing said.
“It becomes much more of a personalized health-care experience for folks,” Rushing said.
Rushing said UCHealth’s new hospitals are going up in areas where the health system already has sizable numbers of patients visiting its clinics and other facilities. He said he expects the service area for the Broomfield hospital — the city’s first — to span the entire Denver-Boulder 36 corridor. The hospital will employ a wide range of specialists. It will partner with physicians not only from the University of Colorado medical school and other UCHealth practitioners but also other physicians and specialists from the community who wish to practice at the site.
Rushing, meanwhile, will serve double duty. A 20-plus-year veteran of hospital administration who previously served as vice president of operations for University of Colorado Hospital and most recently in more of a community development role for the UCHealth system, Rushing is also serving as CEO of UCHealth’s Grandview Hospital in Colorado Springs that is being built in conjunction with Adeptus and is slated for opening sometime in the fall.
