UCHealth Greeley Hospital adds capacity

GREELEY – Leaders and staff at UCHealth Greeley Hospital on Tuesday celebrated the opening of an expansion project that created a 12-bed progressive-care unit and a 20-bed acute-care unit on the fourth floor.

The yearlong project increases the hospital’s original inpatient bed capacity by almost 70 percent, growing from 51 beds when the facility opened nearly four years ago to 87 beds now.  

The project also includes two intensive-care unit beds added during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as an expansion to the cafeteria, two additional labor, recovery and postpartum beds and a second trauma room in the emergency department that opened late last year. 

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“More and more patients are choosing to receive their care here every day,” said hospital president Marilyn Schock in a prepared statement. “This will enable us to care for even more patients right here, close to home.” 

UCHealth built Greeley Hospital to serve the many Greeley and Weld County patients who previously were receiving care at the system’s Loveland and Fort Collins hospitals. The hospital was designed to accommodate growth when needed with little disruption to daily operations, including a shelled fourth floor, where the new units were built.  

Since the hospital opened on July 3, 2019, it has been operating near or at full capacity every day, Schock said. 

• In its first year, the hospital cared for 4,428 inpatients. That number is expected to reach just over 5,300 by the end of June. 
• Surgeries performed there have about doubled, from 1,544 in the first year to 3,175 expected by the end of June.
• The emergency department now sees an average of 100 patients per day, up from 60 per day when the hospital opened.  

At a pre-opening gathering Tuesday afternoon in the new space, chaplain Ryan Wooley asked hospital leaders and staff to reflect upon the many lives they have touched and will touch. 

“Every time you walk on this floor, every time you come into this building, know that you are the blessing that comes here,” he said. “You are the blessing that interacts with every single patient, with every single loved one and family member, and you are the blessing that makes the impact here.”