Hospital move set for June 29

By Judy Lin

While most of us are still snoozing this Sunday, 2,100 porters, nurses, lift teams, respiratory therapists, ambulance drivers and others from UCLA Medical Center will be on the move. Starting at 5:00 a.m., they will transport 50 patients from the Neuropsychiatric Institute and 350 patients from the old hospital to the gleaming new Ronald Reagan Medical Center.

While the move is a short distance across Westwood Boulevard, accomplishing it with the wellbeing of every patient as the number-one aim will require clockwork precision. Every 15 minutes, a patient will depart his or her room at the old hospital — transferred to a gurney and then an ambulance, all of their medical equipment and their nurse accompanying them — to a room at the new hospital.

See fun footage of the new hospital while it was being built, followed by a virtual tour, at www.uclahealth.org.

Hospital staff have been practicing their parts for months. Two teams — the Blue Team and the Gold Team — will move along two separate street routes along the perimeters of the two hospitals. A third Red Team will move a dozen or so patients whose critical state will not allow them to be moved on a strict time schedule — including, for example, infants from the neointensive care unit.

If this all sounds like a scene you'd like to check out — don't even think about it. Westwood Boulevard and adjacent streets will be closed to traffic and even the sidewalks will be blocked, with UCPD, LAPD and hospital security strictly enforcing closures.

During the move, trauma ambulances that would normally come to UCLA will be diverted ambulances to other hospitals. When the move is completed at about 3:00 p.m., the new ER will officially open.

For more on the move, see our previous story, Crossing one street takes hospital years of planning. And be sure to check back here on Monday for additional coverage.