More than 100 people gathered for an all-staff meeting at 5 a.m. to review the day's plan and get revved up for the big move to UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay. Photo by Noah Berger
With 40 ambulances, approximately 300 UC San Francisco staff and faculty, as well as 100 emergency medical services personnel, UCSF Medical Center on Sunday, Feb. 1, safely transported 131 patients to the new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay from its Parnassus and Mount Zion campuses.
The move day started at 7 a.m. on the UCSF Parnassus campus; later in the day patients also were transported from the UCSF Mount Zion campus. The last patient to be moved arrived at UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay at 3:33 p.m. The new medical center also greeted the first baby born at the new hospitals, a healthy boy who entered the world at a little more than seven pounds.
The opening of the new hospitals was the culmination of more than 10 years of planning and construction of the complex, which includes UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, UCSF Betty Irene Moore Women’s Hospital, UCSF Bakar Cancer Hospital and the UCSF Ron Conway Family Gateway Medical Building.
The move day, itself, reflected significant planning. “Patient safety was our top priority during the patient move, along with minimizing disruption to our neighbors. We achieved both goals, thanks to the superb work of our medical center faculty and staff as well as our partners in the City of San Francisco,” said Mark R. Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. “We have been looking forward to this day for some time, and the opportunity to start providing care in our new location at UCSF Mission Bay.”
The majority of patients who made the trip on Sunday were children, as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco moved from Parnassus to its new home at UCSF Mission Bay.
Strategically located on UCSF’s world renowned UCSF Mission Bay biomedical research campus, the new medical center puts UCSF physicians in close proximity to UCSF researchers and nearby biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in Mission Bay and beyond who are working to understand and treat diseases ranging from cancer to cardiovascular disease to neurological conditions.
“Placing the hospitals on our Mission Bay campus underscores our commitment to driving discoveries toward patient care, ensuring that our world-class researchers are working in close proximity to our leading clinical researchers and physicians in the hospitals,“ said Sam Hawgood, MBBS, chancellor of UCSF. “They also will provide invaluable training for our medical students, the next generation of clinicians who will take care of patients at health care facilities across California and nationally.
“Significantly, the move also frees up space on our Parnassus and Mount Zion campuses, which will allow us to enrich our medical programs for adult patients there. With the opening of the hospitals at Mission Bay, we now have integrated clinical care and research programs on all of our campuses, the critical factor that has contributed to UCSF’s local, regional and global impact.”