Clements University Hospital, West Campus expand to meet needs

On Sept. 29, UT Southwestern President Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky and Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of University Hospitals Dr. John Warner (left and right at center) joined employees of William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital to celebrate the hospital’s expansion.

Growth is coming to UT Southwestern’s William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital and its West Campus, and much sooner than expected.

The number of patients the hospital serves has grown more rapidly than anyone could have foreseen – an indication of the trust that the community has in the excellent care that UT Southwestern University Hospitals deliver.

In September 2017, less than three years after Clements University Hospital was dedicated, UT Southwestern broke ground to start work on a third hospital tower, a significant expansion to the current two-tower building. The 30-month construction project will add a tower to house employees, patients, and services that are now delivered at Zale Lipshy University Hospital, making Clements the clinical site of neuroscience programs associated with the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute.

Besides relocating all staff services currently provided at Zale Lipshy, the hospital expansion project will create a net addition of 144 beds campuswide. The planned renovation will also include an enlargement of the Emergency Department and add new operating rooms, interventional suites, and two parking structures.

This illustration of the William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital expansion shows the third tower, now under construction, to the right.

When it is complete in 2020, the new tower will not only consolidate all UT Southwestern inpatient services in one facility, but will also allow the Medical Center to improve the quality of hospital care and services; lower the cost of care by eliminating redundancies in infrastructure, staffing, and inventory; position Clements as a destination, high-acuity hospital in the region; and prepare UT Southwestern for future referrals from growth of the Southwestern Health Resources network.

Dr. John Warner, Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, University Hospitals, is enthusiastic about the prospect of bringing together Clements and Zale Lipshy programs and staff under the same roof.

“Being in the same building is going to help make us even better,” said Dr. Warner, who holds the Jim and Norma Smith Distinguished Chair for Interventional Cardiology, and the Nancy and Jeremy Halbreich, Susan and Theodore Strauss Professorship in Cardiology. “I look forward to us all being together. It will streamline and simplify many of our consultation services and it will strengthen and support our multidisciplinary care model.”

Leaders are still exploring how the Zale Lipshy space will be used. Clements University Hospital sits in the area of UT Southwestern known as West Campus – the former site of St. Paul University Hospital – which also is undergoing large-scale development.

The $875 million West Campus Facilities Master Plan will unfold in five phases over 20 years. Ultimately, the plan will add 1.1 million square feet of facility space.

The first phase involves construction of a nine-story, 305,000-square-foot academic and clinical building that will house faculty offices, outpatient clinics, and a state-of-the-art simulation center, all estimated to be completed this year. The simulation center will include four mock operation, ICU, emergency, and obstetrical rooms; 20 mock patient exam rooms; and six advanced technology team training rooms. Clinical areas of the building will include 220 exam rooms and procedure rooms for multiple specialties. An 805-space parking garage also will be added in this phase.