University of Missouri Health Care Opens $190M Expansion Project

By Gabriel Circiog, Associate Editor

University of Missouri Health Care has inaugurated its largest expansion ever for University Hospital in Columbia, Mo. The $190 million addition was designed by renowned architecture firm HOK and will feature a new patient care tower and a facility which will replace the oldest cancer center west of the Mississippi River – the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center.

Located on the northeast side of the existing hospital, the eight-story building features numerous technological and sustainable design elements, and it is seeking LEED-Silver certification. Green features include the reuse of stonework from another demolished building on campus, higher efficiency fixtures to reduce water consumption by almost 61 percent, 10,000 square feet of green roofs and a rain screen exterior wall system.

The tower features 90 private rooms with state-of-the-art technology which allows wireless integration of the medical devices with the hospital’s electronic medical record keeping. The 310,500-square-foot addition also includes a 7,000-square-foot inpatient pharmacy with robotics to automatically dispense medication, 25 pre-procedure rooms and 18 post-procedure recovery rooms as well as a 1,800-square-foot lounge for families of surgery patients. The construction manager of the project was Kansas City, Mo.-based JE Dunn Construction Co.

The tower has also integrated the new Ellis Fischel Cancer Center allowing inpatient and outpatient care from a single location. The 100,000-square-foot cancer center spans over two levels and features two linear accelerators and space for a PET-CT scanner, a CT scanner, two magnetic resonance imaging rooms and 66 clinic examination rooms.

HOK also designed a 3,150-square-foot healing garden which offers a seamless connection to interior spaces of the tower, optimizing sunlight.

Photo Courtesy of: www.hok.com