The Helen Diller Foundation's $500 million commitment to UCSF will support planning for a new hospital at Parnassus Heights. In recognition of the extraordinary commitment, the complex has been renamed the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights. Photo by Noah Berger
UC San Francisco has received a $500 million commitment from the Helen Diller Foundation to support the planning, design and construction of a new, world-class hospital at the University’s historic Parnassus Heights campus, ensuring that UCSF can continue to provide premier care to patients in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond in the 21st century.
The commitment will allow UCSF to begin the extensive planning process for an architecturally outstanding, energy-efficient, seismically sound, and environmentally sustainable hospital, which is expected to open its doors to patients before 2030.
“This incredible commitment sets the stage for a 21st century hospital that will play a critical role in patient care for San Franciscans and our community, as well as patients from around the nation and the globe who come to UCSF for care, including highly specialized tertiary and quaternary care,” said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS. “Most importantly, it will support each patient’s experience at every step, providing a welcoming, patient-centered environment that promotes warmth and respect, upholding the highest standards of hospitality and patient safety, while also incorporating the latest technologies.”
This incredible commitment sets the stage for a 21st century hospital that will play a critical role in patient care for San Franciscans and our community, as well as patients from around the nation and the globe who come to UCSF for care.
The hospital will be a key part of UCSF Health, a growing regional health system that includes UCSF Medical Center, the top-ranked hospital in California and among the top five nationally, according to U.S. News & World Report.
The commitment brings total giving to UCSF by foundations established by the family of the late Helen Diller to more than $1.15 billion, and places the Bay Area family among a handful of American philanthropists who have made commitments of $1 billion or more to a single U.S. academic institution.
“Helen Diller appreciated UCSF’s excellence as one of the world’s leading health sciences universities,” said Phyllis Cook, executive officer of the Helen Diller Foundation. “She would be so proud of this commitment to clinical services in the Bay Area made in her memory. This special grant will help ensure that the outstanding doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals and researchers at Parnassus Heights will have an exceptional new space to support their important work, and that the patients will receive the best care in a warm, welcoming hospital for generations to come.”