BLOOMINGTON, Ind.— IU Health began moving 145 patients from its old facility in downtown Bloomington to its new hospital on Sunday. It recently opened on the Indiana 45/46 Bypass.
IU Health executives are calling the new hospital a regional medical center, where patients can go for nearly all of their medical needs.
“This is a place where people will heal, families will rejoice, loved ones will mourn and students will learn,” IU Health South Central Region President Brian Shockney said at a ribbon-cutting event Wednesday.
The facility has 364 beds, a dedicated trauma center, comprehensive OB/GYN services and behavioral health inpatient care.
The new hospital welcomed its first baby around 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.
“This allows us to, in this South Central region, really fulfill the full mission of IU Health that we have not been able to fulfill in the South Central region previously,” said Shockney.
The campus features an academic health center where students at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the School of Nursing can get hands-on training in a center that has 22 beds, along with a labor and delivery area.
The center will also have space for other fields of study.
“Speech language hearing, social work, optometry, sociology — all kinds of research is possible, and now having a center where that research can reside is really taking it to the next level,” said IU Bloomington’s Associate Dean for the School of Medicine Dr. Kathy Hiller.
The total price tag for the hospital and surrounding campus is $557 million. It will employ 5,000 workers.
