By Daily Press staff
Specialized orthopaedic care and surgery in Santa Monica will soon just be a doctor’s visit away.
Orthopaedic Hospital’s surgical services are coming to Santa Monica, two years before completion of the new Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital.
Orthopaedic Hospital’s surgical services are scheduled to relocate to Santa Monica-UCLA this month. Pediatric surgical services will move first in mid-July, followed by adult inpatient services by the end of the month. Orthopaedic Hospital will continue to provide and expand outpatient services at its recently constructed, 40,000-square-foot outpatient facility on its existing campus in downtown Los Angeles. Services include pediatric orthopaedics, adult chronic mus-culoskeletal disorders, urgent pediatric trauma care and occupational medicine.
UCLA Healthcare and Orthopaedic Hospital signed a strategic alliance in 1998, calling for Orthopaedic Hospital to relocate its surgical services to the new facility in Santa Monica.
“We are very excited to be operational-izing our alliance with UCLA Healthcare by relocating our inpatient services to the Santa Monica campus,” said Dr. James V. Luck Jr, president, CEO and medical director of Orthopaedic Hospital.
The hospital is known for its patient care, teaching and research in orthopaedic medicine, hospital officials say. For almost 100 years, the hospital has been helping children afflicted with crippling conditions lead healthy, active lives regardless of their families’ ability to pay.
Santa Monica-UCLA serves as a part of the UCLA Hospital System, which also includes UCLA Medical Center, the Neuropsychiatric Hospital and the Mattel Children’s Hospital in Westwood. Santa Monica-UCLA provides comprehensive primary and specialty care to Los Angeles’ Westside community.
Its 24-hour Nethercutt Emergency Center treats almost 30,000 patients a year, and its maternity center delivers almost 2,000 babies each year. The hospital also has the city’s only dedicated pediatrics service to ensure that infants, children and adolescents receive age-friendly care when hospitalized — an important feature for the partnership with Orthopaedic Hospital, officials say.
The new Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital, currently taking shape around the existing Santa Monica facility, will open in phases beginning next spring.
Plans call for the new Nethercutt Emergency Center to open first. The 14,000-square-footfacility,tobelocatedon 15th Street near Arizona Avenue, will fea-tureseveralinnovationsinemergencycare. Those features include rooms that offer greater versatility for diagnosis and treat-mentwhileaffordingmaximumprivacy;an observationunitwherepatientscanbemon-itored continuously until they are admitted or discharged home; state-of-the-art medical equipment and technology; and the capabilityofprovidingfast-trackservicefor minorinjuriesandillnesses.
Other key components of the new, 271-bed hospital, which will feature an inviting, user-friendly design compatible with its neighborhood setting, include: ■ The Orthopaedic Hospital facility, featuring an outpatient clinic and providing comprehensive inpatient and outpatient orthopaedic care. ■ A new birthing center and 16-bassinet neonatal intensive-care unit. ■ A new, 22-bed critical-care unit. ■ Six new, state-of-the-art operating rooms. ■ Expanded space for outpatient services.
Almost 90 percent of beds in the new hospital will be in private rooms, and more than one-quarter of the new medical campus will be devoted to green and open spaces.
Construction officials expect the project to be mostly completed in 2007, with occupancy planned for early 2008.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 23, 2005. Read the original PDF.