$138.5 Million Upgrade Underway At UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Zale Lipshy Pavilion
When UT Southwestern Medical Center began planning renovations on its Zale Lipshy Pavilion, wheelchair-using patients took designers on a tour of the 35-year-old building’s obstacles and inconveniences.
Improving accessibility is a key driver of the Dallas hospital’s $138.5 million renovation that focuses on musculoskeletal care and rehabilitation, said Chris Rubio, chief operating officer and interim CEO of William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital at UT Southwestern.
“Everybody was extremely happy to help and eager to participate in a redesign,” Rubio said. “There’s been a lot of thought and work put into how we want to support our rehabilitation program and patients.”
Work on the building, which just began, is planned to last 18 months. Renovations will update bathrooms to meet current accessibility standards, improve flow throughput spaces, provide new rehab gym equipment and upgrade plumbing, electrical, HVAC systems and other infrastructure.
The number of beds will expand from 74 to around 130. Additional beds will accommodate general patients as well as rehab patients, expanding the capabilities of nearby UT Southwestern’s Clements University Hospital.
Operating rooms will be made significantly bigger than when they were designed in 1987, Rubio said, and will have updated HVAC systems, equipment and lighting.
“Physicians will have a much better facility to take care of their patients,” Rubio said. “We’re doing a lot of work to improve the flow of the hospital and putting that rehab musculoskeletal aspect of this building at front-of-mind as we’ve been working through design.”
Most patient care and operations should continue as usual throughout the renovations.
“We’ve got a very, very extensive plan that we’ve worked out with our clinical leaders and administrative team,” Rubio said. “We’re fortunate because the hospital is not full. We can take down whole floors and it’s not going to impact daily operations very much.”
While operating rooms undergo construction, orthopedic and spinal surgery patients will be treated at Clements University Hospital.
“ The renovations will also augment the hospital’s teaching and research efforts,” Rubio said. “It’s very important to have an academic-based program that really is leading, not just in patient care, but how we educate and do research in these areas. All of this space will support those functions.”
The University of Texas Board of Regents approved $128.5 million in bonds for the project to go along with $10 million of institutional funds.
Source: Dallas Morning News
