Northern Kentucky Residents Are in Good Health
Northern Kentucky health care facilities are experiencing historic growth and expansion.
The bustling communities of Northern Kentucky are experiencing a robust time of growth, including the expansion of major health care facilities in the area, ensuring residents access to leading-edge services close to home.
Cardio Care
Unparalleled cardiovascular care is just a heartbeat away at the Florence Wormald Heart and Vascular Institute at St. Elizabeth Healthcare. The institute has been serving patients since 2015, but a recent exciting event brought together 30 multispecialty heart and vascular institute physicians and 30 advanced providers from multiple offices under one roof.
The institute’s new home is a 67,000-square-foot building in Edgewood near the St. Elizabeth Edgewood Hospital. A donation of $7 million — the largest in St. Elizabeth history — from William “Bill” J. Yung III helped fund the project and saw the institute renamed to honor his mother.
During the last six years, St. Elizabeth has added numerous cardiac specialists and adopted leading-edge technology, including wireless pacemakers small enough to fit inside the heart, the implantable heart pumps that extend life for patients with heart failure and heart valves that can be replaced without open heart surgery.
Decreasing Heart Deaths
One of the main goals for the institute since opening is decreasing heart-related deaths in Northern Kentucky by 25% by 2025 — and the new Edgewood facility moves the community forward in achieving that goal. Helping to meet that mark is eliminating the long wait you might expect to see a cardiologist. Instead, individuals experiencing concerning symptoms can call the institute from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and be seen that day or the next business day.
“With the Heart & Vascular Institute being right here in Northern Kentucky and Southeastern Indiana, our community needs to look no further for excellent, nationally recognized heart care. We have recently increased access to cardiologists by offering same-day/ next-day appointments when requested. This is another way we are putting patients and our community at the center of everything we do,” says Dr. D.P. Suresh, cardiologist and executive medical director of the institute.
Largest Renovation in Hospital History
In nearby Cincinnati, history is being made at UC Health. It is in the middle of a massive $221 million revitalization of its downtown Clifton Campus. The largest project in the health system’s history, the five-year plan includes phased openings of the new facility throughout 2023, with completion set for 2024.
On the drawing board is the long-awaited 41,000-square-foot addition of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center Emergency Department, being built on an adjacent vacant lot. The only adult Level 1 trauma center in the region, the effort is designed to improve capacity and patient flow, plus reconfigure access for individuals arriving via ambulance and private vehicles.
The existing 35,000-square-foot emergency department, which is 30 years old, will be renovated to provide additional space for emergency response and manage surge capacity during a crisis.
An additional three stories will be built above the new emergency department to house an observation unit, a flexible ICU, a 28-bed medical inpatient unit and a top mechanical floor that will serve as a space for the future vertical buildout of the tower.
Other construction will include room to accommodate eight additional operating rooms and other clinical support spaces. This area is scheduled to open in 2023.
“This investment is about more than simply new buildings: This will significantly improve the way we serve patients from across Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky,” says Rob Wiehe, executive vice president and chief operating officer for UC Health. “As the region’s only adult academic health system, we are the community’s destination for advanced, subspecialty neurological, cancer and trauma care. Now, our facilities will better reflect the world-class care that is provided within our walls every day.”
Want to learn more about living and working in the Northern Kentucky region? Check out the latest edition of Livability Northern Kentucky.
