North Carolina Surgical Hospital took five years to build. The $425 million facility was funded by bonds and reserves.
The old surgical hospital, North Carolina Memorial, opened in 1952, and was outdated. Caprice Greenberg, who chairs UNC-Chapel Hill’s surgical department, said one of the biggest challenges they’ve faced is the demand for care as the state hospital outgrew its ability to meet the needs of the population.
“It’s been really heartbreaking for people here, and really hard for patients across North Carolina when they need to get transferred in, or they need to come here for care, and we can’t provide that care,” she said. “This new hospital is going to make sure that we have the operating rooms and the ICUs available when people need us.”
The new 375,000-square-foot facility has 26 large operation rooms that are 50% bigger than the old one. Four of the operating rooms are designated as “hybrid spaces,” which integrate imaging technology into surgical procedures to enhance precision and efficiency, according to a press release.
“We have a lot of built in technology that allows us to communicate outside of the operating room,” said Greenberg. “For example, when our pathologists look at the cancer after we remove it from a patient, they can then call in, and using videos, we can look at the slides with them and look at what we just removed from the patient.”
Meanwhile, Greenberg said North Carolina Surgical Hospital is expected to bring over 100 new jobs to Chapel Hill.
