New ED and New Diagnostic & Treatment Center open!

As of November 2004, Alabamians now have access to a new, 850,000-square-foot health-care facility with an emergency room the size of a football field, high-tech surgical suites that can accommodate robot-assisted surgery, and a helipad with oversize elevators that can transport patients and life-support equipment. The Emergency Department on the ground floor of the facility—nearly three times the size of the prior ED—represents a "paradigm shift" in organizational flexibility for emergency services, with Emergency Department services arranged using a modular approach that promotes staff efficiency.

Treatment areas are arranged to facilitate bedside registration and order entry, the rapid transport of patients, and five skywalks span 6th Avenue South to the pavilion’s West Building. The new pavilion is situated within the central core of the current hospital complex—a system that spans five city blocks, occupies 13 major buildings, and covers 2.1 million square feet of space. In addition to emergency services, surgery, and the heliport, the new nine-floor tower accommodates imaging facilities, a 196-bed capacity intensive-care and acute-care unit, and support services. With a total cost of $275 million, the project was recently completed and patient care began in the new Emergency Department in November 2004.