Jun 29, 2008 3:10 PM

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center opens

After years of planning, the move from UCLA's 53-year-old hospital to the brand-new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Mattel Children's Hospital and Resnick Psychiatric Hospital took only one morning to accomplish.

But what a morning it was!

Starting at 5:30 a.m. Sunday, June 29, with a crescent moon still lingering in a dawn sky, some 2,100 nurses, lifters, porters, respiratory therapists, ambulance drivers and others taking part in the gargantuan effort began their tightly choreographed sequence to safely transport 335 patients from the old hospital to the new.

They'd practiced the drill for months, going over their parts again and again. Finally, the big day arrived. Westwood Boulevard and other nearby streets were closed off and the operation began with patients from Resnick Neuropsychiatric Institute moving by ambulance and shuttle bus. That mission accomplished, two teams — the Blue Team and the Gold Team — assembled in the cafeterias at both the old hospital and the new for "pow-wows" with Gerald S. Levey, vice chancellor of Medical Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine, and other administrators.

At 7:00 the teams went into action, moving with military precision along their designated routes.

At the old hospital, teams carefully placed patients, their medical equipment and personal belongings onto gurneys. One by one the gurneys were loaded into ambulances and transported, along with the patients' nurses and family members, across the street, arriving at the rate of one every two minutes.

At the new hospital, patients were greeted by smiling staff members who removed them from the ambulances, rolled their gurneys through the shimmering hallways and escorted them to their gleaming new rooms, fluffing their pillows, reattaching medical devices and showing them the beautiful views out wide windows.

Meanwhile, a third move team — the Red Team — transported critically ill patients. Some of these included pregnant women readying to have babies, transplant patients in line to receive new donor organs and neonatal intensive care infants who had to be moved in special transporters to keep their sensitive body temperatures stable.

One of the first to make the move was 11-year-old Miranda Beck, a pediatric oncology patient who arrived hooked up to monitors and fluid drips.

"Wow!" she said upon arriving with her mother, Lisa Beck, in Mattel's beautiful new home, complete with a private room for her — as well as for every other patient. Later, as the very first visitor to Mattel's new Child Life play area — offering kids everything from arts and crafts to Wii computer games — Miranda enthused, "This is cool!"

At noon, the last patients were dispatched from the old hospital, and at 12:40 p.m., a historic announcement over the P.A. system at the new medical center was met with cheers and applause: "The last patient has been moved in," said James Atkinson, senior medical director of clinical operations at the medical center and chief of pediatric surgery at Mattel Children's Hospital. "Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center is official open. Welcome."

"I found it a very emotional experience to actually see the patients moved," said Vice Chancellor Levey, who played a pivotal role in the years-long creation and construction of the new hospital, during a press conference that followed the completed move. "It's wonderful to finally see the new hospital filled with people."

"It took the dedication of our doctors, nurses and support staff to accomplish this phenomenal effort," said David Feinberg, chief executive officer and interim associate vice chancellor of the UCLA Hospital System. "Our world-renowned medical staff has always provided exceptional patient care, and we now have an exceptional building in which to provide the best patient experience to the community and the world for many years to come."

For more on the new hospital, see the UCLA Newsroom.

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