UK HealthCare: Advanced Medicine for the People of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky medical enterprise, known today as UK HealthCare, opened its doors in 1960. Its mission then, as now, was to provide the best possible medical care to the people of the Commonwealth.
Now, 50 years later, UK HealthCare is in the midst of an exciting phase of growth and renewal, both inside and out. Much is changing, but the one thing that has not changed is the organization’s commitment to the people it serves.
Drive down South Limestone in Lexington and it’s impossible to miss the new Albert B. Chandler Hospital, a state-of-the-art facility that promises to change the medical landscape of Lexington just as surely as it is changing the physical one.
When it opens in 2011, the new “hospital of the future” will be both the leading patient-centered medical center in Kentucky and a landmark architectural statement in the heart of Lexington. This new facility will be a world-class hospital – uniquely Kentucky. In every way it will match or exceed the technical advancements in medicine available around the world, yet it will have a character and warmth that make it welcoming and familiar to the people of Kentucky whom it serves.
But the new hospital is just one sign of the change happening at all levels of UK HealthCare, all part of an ongoing commitment to transform health care for the people of Kentucky and become no less than one of the very best academic medical centers in the country.
A vast range of health care services
Today, UK HealthCare offers a vast range of health care services at UK Albert B. Chandler Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, Kentucky Children's Hospital, Markey Cancer Center, Gill Heart Institute, Kentucky Neuroscience Institute, two Kentucky Clinic locations, the Polk-Dalton Clinic and numerous outreach clinics. It also encompasses the clinical activities of the UK colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Public Health, Health Sciences and Nursing. UK Chandler Hospital offers the only Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center in Central Kentucky as well as a Joint Commission-accredited Primary Stroke Center, a Level IV Epilepsy Center and an Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging Center. Kentucky Children’s Hospital has the area’s only Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, capable of treating the sickest infants.
This breadth is rare, even among academic medical centers, and it affords the organization the ability to offer the most comprehensive care in the region with numerous programs and specialties, renowned clinical trials and research. It also means that physicians in disparate specialties are able to collaborate in the care of patients with complex or overlapping conditions, ultimately providing better quality care.
UK HealthCare operates under the principle that no Kentuckian should ever have to leave the state to seek qualified medical care, no matter how complex their condition. To that end, the organization has worked to continually upgrade equipment and facilities, recruit renowned specialists in varied medical fields, and to establish a network of outreach clinics and affiliate hospitals.
UK HealthCare has continued to build strong relationships with regional rural health providers based on respect and a clear understanding of the mutual benefits. UK specialists reach out to patients at several community hospitals, and the Markey Cancer Center, Gill Heart Institute, Kentucky Children’s Hospital and the UK Transplant Center have each established formal networks with local hospitals and providers.
These partnerships enable people who need medical care to stay close to home for as long as possible, receiving care from their community hospitals and physicians. But when specialized care is needed, UK HealthCare has taken the steps needed to ensure easy and fluid access to all that its academic medical center has to offer.
More than 50 percent of UK HealthCare patients come from more than 30 miles away. It is very much a growing referral center for the people of Kentucky.
A culture of service
With the unprecedented growth UK HealthCare has seen over the last several years, it would be easy to lose sight of the personal side of health care. But the guiding belief at UK HealthCare is that medicine is, above all, a human endeavor. An entire department dedicated to customer service works to help patients and their loved ones navigate a complex and sometimes confusing medical system.
Customer service representatives are there to find answers to questions and work to ensure that expectations of quality and care are met – or exceeded. These folks don’t work alone, however. At UK HealthCare, customer service – respectful, personalized patient care – is everyone’s responsibility. The goal is to be the academic medical center with a warm heart, blending medical advances with compassion and the warmth of the human touch.
So when the people of Lexington and Central Kentucky drive past that beautiful new hospital on South Limestone, they can know that it’s much more than a new building: It’s a symbol of the transformation at all levels of UK HealthCare toward becoming one of the very best academic medical centers in the country and a referral center for patients needing the most advanced care medicine has to offer. Patients with complex conditions can have confidence that the best medicine will be available close to home – right here in Kentucky.