Focus is on Patients, Families at New MU Health Care Facility at South Providence

COLUMBIA, Mo. — University of Missouri Health Care recently opened a new 85,512-square-foot building in south Columbia, Missouri. The general contractor for the project was River City Construction and Simon Oswald Architecture served as the architect.

The South Providence Medical Park building is the new home for three outpatient clinics, including family medicine, general pediatrics and psychiatry. It houses a nearly 2,000-square-foot pharmacy with drive-through services, a laboratory and radiology and imaging services.

“We believe excellence in healthcare happens when medical teams partner with patients and their families,” said Harold A. Williamson Jr., M.D., executive vice chancellor of health affairs for the University of Missouri. “From the start, we sought input from patients and families on the design of this building. Our goal is to offer comprehensive care for the whole family, from toddlers to adolescents to adults and seniors, in one convenient location.”

The total cost of the project, including the land, building construction and capital and non-capital equipment, is expected to be at or below the $35 million budgeted for the project. MU Health Care funded the project primarily through $30 million in bonds issued by the University of Missouri in February 2012.

Approximately 250 employees will be moving from other MU Health Care locations to work at the new South Providence Medical Park building. MU Health Care officials expect more than 100,000 patient visits at the new facility in 2015.

Williamson said that with the need for outpatient services expected to increase in the future, the South Providence Medical Park building was planned to accommodate future growth.

The South Providence Medical Park building includes a family medicine clinic with 48 exam rooms staffed by more than 60 physicians from the MU School of Medicine’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. It also includes an outpatient clinic for children staffed by approximately 30 pediatricians from MU’s Department of Child Health. The 30 exam rooms in the general pediatrics clinic were designed especially for children and include height, weight and vital sign measurement stations in each exam room.

The psychiatric clinic expanded from 10 to 15 rooms for psychiatrists and psychotherapy, plus two group therapy rooms, and it will be staffed by more than 20 clinicians, including psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, psychologists and licensed counselors.

“Having these family medicine, general pediatrics and outpatient psychiatry clinics under one roof will foster closer collaboration between our medical teams and allow us to focus on treating the whole person and family,” Williamson said. “This collaborative model of care is a leading-edge approach to healthcare, in keeping with our mission as the state’s academic medical center.”

Other services offered in the South Providence Medical Park building include:

• Mizzou Urgent Care relocated from University Physicians Medical Building — non-life-threatening illnesses, lacerations, sprains, onsite X-ray for most routine needs, lab services during all hours of operation.
• The Missouri Imaging Center relocated from West Broadway — magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, ultrasound, X-ray, mammography and laser imaging services.

The South Providence Medical Park building is expected to be approved as a LEED Silver-certified building by the U.S. Green Building Council. The building’s green features include exterior stormwater basins that double as decorative water features and provide natural landscaping, exam rooms with lights that automatically turn off when a room is unoccupied, skylights on the second floor to provide more natural light, showers for staff to use after walking or biking to work, and water fountains that include a water bottle filling station and a tracker to show how many bottles have been filled at each station. The building is also located on a public bus route.

South Providence Medical Park is located on 25 acres near the intersection of Providence Road and Southampton Drive. MU Health Care officials said the acreage and location in a high-growth area of Columbia will allow MU Health Care to expand services in the future as Columbia continues to become a destination for medical care.

Photos courtesy of Justin Kelley, MU Health Care.