Tucson Medical Center is expanding its campus to include a new four-story surgical tower, the first addition to the hospital that's going up up instead of out.
The hospital has been known as the largest single-story hospital in the country, so this expansion will mean the loss of that moniker, says Linda Wojtowicz, TMC's senior vice president and chief operations officer.
But it also means new surgical facilities, says Douglas Lowell, the chief of surgery at TMC.
"We're looking forward to having new operating rooms which are larger, have modern amenities, including much of the equipment suspended from the ceiling to allow for easy access and safety improvements," Lowell says.
The four-story building costs $110 million and will be 220,000 square feet when it's finished, Wojtowics says. All surgical services will move to the new building, and Lowell says doctors are looking forward to new technology.
"The rooms are going to be so-called integrated rooms which have a lot of electronic capabilities to be able to display information and pictures," Lowell says. "This is something that modern surgical techniques sometimes depend on heavily."
The expansion is expected to open in April, 2013.
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