Our school continues to make impressive progress toward the goals I outlined at the annual State of School address on February 6, 2026. This month’s message, the final installment of a three-part series, highlights our efforts to advance high-quality, patient-centered care through increasing capacity and improving access, strengthening rural health programs, and advancing digital health and artificial intelligence (AI) tools for clinical care.
Several major projects are helping ensure patients can access care when and where they need it. Among the most significant is the $70.5 million expansion of the UAB Hospital Emergency Department, supported by UAB Medicine and $50 million in state supplemental funds. Phase One new construction will add a total of 66 care spaces, including a 30-bed observation unit, 10 behavioral health exam rooms, eight exam bays, six triage rooms, an airborne isolation room, and more. Once complete, the emergency department will feature more than 115 treatment and triage spaces, more than doubling current capacity. Occupancy of Phase One is planned for the week of November 16.
Designed with input from frontline physicians, nurses, and staff, the expansion includes dedicated imaging equipment, streamlined tele-admission capabilities, and specialized patient-handling technology. Together, these improvements will strengthen patient flow, safety, and access to emergency care while meeting the growing needs of our community.
During 2026, UAB Medicine expanded access through new clinics and additional locations. These include new gastroenterology and urology clinic spaces at UAB St. Vincent’s East; a second UAB Men’s Health Clinic location at UAB Hospital-Highlands; a new Fracture and Fragility Clinic, launched by the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism; the UAB Saturday Morning Injury Clinic, offering walk-in care for acute injuries and sports injuries at UAB Hospital-Highlands through November 21; and the new Peripheral Nerve Clinic, which provides care for patients with complex nerve injuries. These investments help reduce barriers to care while ensuring that patients benefit from the full breadth of expertise available across our academic medical center.
Technology also plays an essential role in increasing access and capacity. Preparations are underway for Epic Journey Wave 2, scheduled to go live on February 27, 2027. This next phase of our transition to the Epic electronic health record system will include the UAB Health System; UAB Schools of Dentistry, Health Professions, Nursing, and Optometry; and the Heersink School of Medicine Huntsville Campus and Selma Family Medicine Residency Program.
Epic went live at UAB St. Vincent’s this summer and providers have already seen a reduction in documentation time. Enhanced patient care, documentation, scheduling, registration, and billing tools will help us improve efficiency, expand access, and support high-quality care delivery across our enterprise.
Strengthening healthcare in rural Alabama remains a critical priority. This year, we celebrated a transformative $10 million gift from Mike and Gillian Goodrich to establish the Goodrich Rural Innovation in Training for Alabama (GRIT) initiative, which will cultivate and support physicians who train in rural communities and stay there to practice.
Our commitment to rural healthcare is further demonstrated through participation in the Alabama Rural Health Transformation Program. UAB received approximately $17 million in support across UAB Medicine, the Heersink School of Medicine, UAB St. Vincent’s, and other UAB units. A significant portion of these resources will strengthen information technology infrastructure and connectivity at affiliated and community hospitals supported by the UAB Health System. Enhancements ranging from telehealth connectivity to upgraded wireless networks will improve efficiency, expand access to specialty expertise, and help rural hospitals better serve their communities.
At the same time, we continue to advance the responsible use of digital health and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve care delivery. The Marnix E. Heersink Institute for Biomedical Innovation’s AI Foundry program has developed a portfolio of nine active clinical AI and digital tools, including six pilot programs and three fully deployed solutions.
Among the pilot tools are CLARA, which helps identify patients at elevated risk for bloodstream infections; FAST, which connects self-pay patients with primary care resources; and ProtoIQ, which improves access to critical clinical-trial information. Other tools support quality reporting, medical education, and nursing simulation training. Three additional solutions are already fully deployed, including the SAFEST Dashboard, which supports UAB Medicine’s patient safety initiatives; the CMQO Dashboard, which provides leadership visibility into quality improvement projects; and a surgical intake platform that helped ensure continuity during the Epic transition at UAB St. Vincent’s.
We are also building long-term AI capacity through the Heersink School of Medicine Digital Service Unit, supported by $5 million in state funding through UAB’s Artificial Intelligence for Medicine and Health Initiative (AIM+HI). This resource is dedicated to providing secure, institutionally approved AI tools and training to support research productivity and administrative efficiency. Since its April 29 launch, the AI tools site has seen an average of nearly 600 daily uses, with 1,250 uses in the first 24 hours. The DSU is also currently piloting an AI chat platform. I congratulate Ryan Melvin, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, on his appointment as DSU director this year.
Further advancing this work, we will host the AI in Precision Medicine Symposium on October 28-29, bringing together leading experts from UAB and partner institutions such as McMaster University in Canada, Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and Thammasat University in Thailand to explore how AI is transforming precision medicine, from discovery to implementation.
Taken together, these efforts reflect our commitment to shaping the future of medicine through innovation, collaboration, and service. Whether expanding emergency care capacity, strengthening rural health infrastructure, or developing transformative digital tools, we remain focused on our mission to improve the health and well-being of the people we serve. I am grateful for the dedication of our faculty, staff, learners, and partners whose work continues to drive this progress forward.