Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

New Children's Outpatient Center Set to Open in October

Courtesy of the University of Utah

The new Eccles Primary Children’s Outpatient Services Building at the University of Utah is scheduled to open next month.

In the past, many of the Children’s Outpatient Building functions were spread across Primary Children’s Hospital, the University of Utah Research Park, and a rented space near Trolley Square.  But now the Dialysis, Cardiology, Diabetes and seven other clinics will be consolidated under one roof.  Lab work will still be conducted across the street at Primary Children’s Hospital.  Darrel Yamane is the Administrative Director for Lab Services.  He says doing lab work at different location won’t be a problem.

“So we have a pneumatic tube system that’s right here,” says Yamane. “We just--we’ll shoot it directly and that drops directly into the laboratory and we have people who will immediately take it off and process and put it on the machinery.”

There are also plans to use the tube system to enable rapid delivery of prescriptions from the pharmacy at Primary Children’s, without parents having to make the extra trip.  The Outpatient Services Building will serve an area of more than 400,000 square miles.  Katy Welkie is the CEO of the outpatient clinic. She says the building is filling an important need.

“A lot of what we’re seeing in healthcare in general is more and more is shifting from the inpatient arena to the outpatient,” says Welkie.  “We’re seeing much more growth in out-patient care than we do in in-patient care, which was one of the great motivators for building this building.  We’re really cramped for space, and we’ve built the building for the future.”

The Eccles Primary Children’s Outpatient Services Building was projected to cost more than 130 million dollars, but is set to be finish under budget.  The facility opens October 7th.  On September 15th there will be a community open house for families and patients.  

KUER is listener-supported public radio. Support this work by making a donation today.