Building for Adaptability: How UC Davis Health is Future Proofing the Hub & Spoke Healthcare Model

Bill: Vicky, thanks so much for joining us again. We’ve had a wonderful event on September 22nd, the AIA healthcare forum. Now we wanna learn a little bit more about UC Davis health and what’s going on first of all, before we get into your huge capital program can you tell us a little bit about the history of the campus and where you come from and where you’re going?

Vicky: So thank you for that. We have a very rich history and we’re very proud of that. It’s something that we’re actually gonna celebrate within our California tower. We’re gonna take a piece of our original history and hopefully put it into our lobby. But we started out as the county hospital and our oldest building on campus is 1928.

Bill: Oh, wow.

Vicky: So we are very proud of it. It’s ultimately going to be going away. Bigger and better, but it’s a Testament to the history that we have within our community and the healthcare that we’ve continued to provide over the last almost a hundred years. So it is the foundation of what we’ve built over these nearly a hundred years to propel us into the future, to continue to deliver high quality world class healthcare.

Bill: That’s fantastic.

Vicky: Thank you.

Bill: Can you talk a little bit about the treatment in the new California facility and the care and what’s gonna be going in there and what’s that gonna be like?

Vicky: So we have a number of different things within our California tower. One of the overarching themes is diversity. We’re trying to touch on diversity in all aspects of the project. A couple of the really key nuggets. As we would call ’em our healing gardens. We have a lot of very natural spaces in both our rooftop gardens, as well as the healing spaces within each of our nursing floors. We’ve also paid a lot of attention to our family areas and how our families interact with our patients here, because some are here for a long time and others are just here for a short stay, but we wanna make sure that there, there are these areas of respite for both the families, as well as staff and visitors. We also have acuity adaptable beds in our campus. So we are trying to do that across our campus. So within 48 X, we also have that green space coming through the paseos, trying to bring really that human feel to it.

Bill: Okay. Fantastic. Can you talk a little bit about how the pandemic has affected your design or has it, I guess with respect to what’s your building now have things changed at all or are you pretty much on track with what you originally were planning?

Vicky: So we have been affected just like everyone else by the pandemic. One of our biggest impacts has really been within our existing hospital spaces. We’re current we’re generally at 95% capacity. So it leaves very little wiggle room for any upgrades and equipment swap outs, things like that, that we’re doing to maintain our existing hospital, as well as that affects our design of how we’re moving forward into the future. We may not have COVID in the future, but we’ll have something else that will require a high level of adaptability.

Bill: Sure.

Vicky: So that’s what we’re trying to provide.

Bill: Great.

Vicky: 95% capacity that really doesn’t lend itself very well to do any renovation or anything in that building.

Bill: Probably one of the reasons why you’re having to do the California tower, right?

Vicky: Yes. Yes we are. Landlocked, but we have found the space and we’re very fortunate to be able to put this new 14 story tower up.

Bill: That’s fantastic.

Vicky: Thanks.

Bill: I can imagine that the hospital brings in patients from a pretty wide range wide area. Can you talk a little bit about that and how far, and why does does UC Davis health.

Vicky: We serve 33 counties within our community. A pretty wide depth and breadth. We are the number one trauma center, the children’s hospital.

Bill: Wow.

Vicky: We also are the transplant center as well as many of the other specialties that we have here. As Dr. Lebarsky, our CEO. Complete not compete. So we are here to partner with our region to complete the care of all of our visitors.

Bill: That’s a great sentiment for sure. It sounds like a lot of high acuity patients come to this campus. Are you doing other things, outpatient facilities that to help decant some of the lower acuity services that you might provide here?

Vicky: So we are, we have our 48 X, which is going to be a four story, one city block surgery center. And that’s a little unique in that we have surgery center as well as clinic spaces so that we can really collaborate between all of our services. We are also reaching out into our community in the hub and spoke model that we’re calling it so that we can access or provide access for more of regions within say Folsom elk Grove Davis, up in Roseville, Rockland. We wanna be able to serve every part of our community.

Bill: That’s fantastic. Right back to the mission and vision of the CEO.

Vicky: Absolutely.

Bill: Yeah. Great. Maybe back to the existing hospital and the future of the the California tower. There have to be some major differences between the two. Can you talk a little bit about that? You probably can talk all day about that, but can you maybe mention some things that, that are different?

Vicky: One of the big differences is we’re going with the acuity adaptable and that’s really part of moving into the future. I will say we do have some double, bedrooms, and those are things of the past. So we are trying to really step up and provide And compassion to each of those that come visit us. So I think it’s some of that we have a lot better way finding we’ve really grown from our north south wing and we’ve just continued to grow to east wing university tower Davis tower pavilions, and now California tower. So wayfinding is a big component to within California tower, just because not everyone can navigate and traverse the long corridors that make up our hospital and most others across the country.

Bill: So Vicky one of the, probably the hardest things to be able to to meet is the UC systems requirements for sustainability. Can you talk a little bit about what UC Davis health is doing?

Vicky: It is I won’t lie. It is gonna be a bit of a challenge, especially for a healthcare system. Ourselves plus our sister campuses likely will struggle a little bit just because of healthcare and the amount of energy that we use and the amount of dependencies that we have on natural gas.

Bill: Sure.

Vicky: Our existing cup has that. We are in the midst of planning for a new central to utility plant that will help us to get to our net 0 2025 goal. We are optimistic that will hit it. But very realistically there may be some challenges with our healthcare setting.

Bill: Sure. Understandable for sure. I wanna shift gears a little bit and talk about one of your other roles and that’s the director of compliance here at UC Davis health. Can you tell us about what that role entails and how that might be different from a community based system.

Vicky: So it’s been really interesting. It actually drew me to UC Davis health to do something that I hadn’t done as a practicing healthcare architect. And so the director of compliance oversees our inspectors our contracts and our building department. Yes. You heard correctly. It is our in-house building department because we are the state anything that’s not HKI or OPA jurisdiction will fall under our building department.

Bill: Okay.

Vicky: We also have a fire marshal’s office here as well. That is one of the perks and one of the learning areas that I have enjoyed the most.

Bill: That’s fantastic. No wonder you have a couple titles there, right? A couple different roles.

Vicky: Absolutely.

Bill: So Vicky, did I hear this right? 7.5 billion capital program. Tell us about it.

Vicky: Yes. And we could be continuing to grow.

Bill: Wow.

Vicky: Dot dot dot. So we have our California tower, which is comprises a large portion of that. We also have 48 X, which is our surgery center. We’re building out our Folsom MOB and that’s actually slated for multiple buildings on that campus in the future. In addition to that, we have the other communities that we’re looking into to continue to build out programs moobs, ASCs, et cetera. In addition to that, we have all of the projects on campus. We have a huge capital. Projects portfolio. We also have deferred maintenance that comprises of a lot of work based on the age of our hospitals.

Bill: Sure.

Vicky: As well as everything in between we not only serve the hospital, we serve school of medicine, school of nursing. We also have our research component.

Bill: Okay.

Vicky: And that 7.5 has a couple of big boulders in it, but there’s a lot of little components in there as well that you too can be a part of UC Davis health and so we will be hosting industry day in October. We’d love for everyone to come join us. We’re looking for new and existing AE teams, GCs and everything in between. So I hope to see you in person soon.

Bill: That sounds fantastic. What a great way to let architectural engineering, construction community be part of this future of UC Davis health. Thanks again.

Vicky: Thank you.