After multiple delays, new Valleywise Health Medical Center to open soon in Phoenix
May 15, 2024, 4:15 AM | Updated: Jun 14, 2024, 9:38 am
PHOENIX – After four years of construction and multiple delays, the new Valleywise Health Medical Center is just weeks away from treating its first patients.
A Valleywise Health spokesman said patients will move into the 10-story, 673,000-square-foot facility at 24th and Roosevelt streets on June 13.
Construction on the new flagship hospital next to the legacy Valleywise Health Medical Center started in February 2020. Two previously announced opening dates — in October 2023 and April of this year — have come and gone.
Valleywise Health, which was renamed from Maricopa Integrated Health System in 2019, is the Phoenix area’s safety net health care system. The Valleywise Health Medical Center is Arizona’s only public teaching hospital.
New Valleywise Health Medical Center boosts emergency capacity
The new building provides significant improvements to the hospital’s ability to quickly treat emergency patients at its Level I trauma center.
Dr. Michael White, Valleywise Health chief clinical officer, said the existing facility, which opened in 1971, has one trauma bay with space for two patients.
“As we expand, we will have three trauma bays, each holding one individual patient, but [we] can scale that to the necessary number that we would have if we had multiple casualties or multiple victims at one time,” White told reporters during a tour of the facility on Monday. “The emergency department itself expands significantly in square footage for us to be able to care for more patients that are seeking care.”
The upgraded campus will have two helipads, including one on the roof of the new tower. A high-speed elevator can go from the top to the ground floor in about seven seconds, White said.
“We want to be able to deliver that care, have the team that is available to deliver that care, as quickly as possible to be able to meet those patient needs,” he said.
KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Colton Krolak contributed to this report.