University of Michigan Health will renovate part of University Hospital, creating 26 incremental private observation rooms to help ease crowding in the emergency department, after approval May 16 by the Board of Regents.
Renovation of the 20,000-square-foot space — formerly the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital unit — is expected to be completed in spring 2025.
Part of the reason for the renovation is the eventual ending of a professional services agreement that allows Trinity Health Ann Arbor and U-M Health to jointly operate a 26-bed inpatient unit.
“Over the last several years, U-M Health teams have provided excellent inpatient care to patients at Trinity Health Ann Arbor, which also helped reduce crowding in our adult E.D.,” said Charles Reuland, chief operations integration officer. “However, Trinity has recently experienced similar high case volumes and has now requested that the shared agreement end so they may use the space to fulfill their own capacity needs.
“E.D. and inpatient capacity issues continue to challenge our regional hospitals throughout our communities.”
There are additional factors that led the leadership team to consider the renovation to University Hospital, including:
- Demand for U-M patient care is high and will increase in the future, according to a recent 10-year strategic analysis.
- Once complete, the additional unit could provide flexible bed-capacity options during future renovations to other adult hospital units.
- Community demand for emergency medical services continues to increase for all U-M regional hospitals.
The estimated cost of the project is $18 million. Funding will be provided from U-M Health resources.
