USF Health Opens New Facility Designed to be One-Stop Shopping Concept for Healthcare

South Tampa Center for Advanced Healthcare on DavisIslands. Photo courtesy of USF Health.

TAMPA, Fla. -- USF Health announces it has opened the SouthTampaCenter for Advanced Healthcare on DavisIslands, a facility it says is changing the way healthcare is delivered in the TampaBay area.

“The goal of USF Health is to transform the way that care is delivered to the community,” said Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, vice president for USF Health and dean of the College of Medicine. “This new center is the first shot in that revolution.”

The 126,000-square-foot, seven-story medical office building is designed for USF Health faculty, staff and students from the colleges of medicine, nursing and public health to work in healthcare teams, bringing services directly to the patient at one location.

For example, a patient who schedules an appointment with the facility’s department of obstetrics and gynecology could receive an annual exam, undergo mammography and ultrasound services in the state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging center during that same visit, and in the future, receive all the results on the same day. He or she could end the visit by picking up the prescribed medications at USF’s inhouse pharmacy, operated by SweetBay Supermarket.

 “There’s no reason a woman should wait almost 10 days for a mammogram result, which is the average in Florida,” Klasko said. “Test results should be part of her decision-making with her physician, at one time.”

The South Tampa Center (STC) will replace the majority of existing outpatient clinics currently located at HarborsideMedicalTower and 17 Davis, both located on DavisIslands.

With 94 exam rooms and 187 faculty offices, the STC will be paperless, with physicians and staff using a sophisticated $15 million electronic medical record system for all patients. The first floor diagnostic imaging center will allow patients to move easily from an exam room to receive an MRI, CT scan, mammography, ultrasound, fluoroscopy, bone densitometry, nuclear medicine or basic X-ray. 

“By providing a one-stop shopping concept to our patients, we will maximize their time by taking advantage of some of the most advanced technology in the Tampa Bay region” said Rick Green, chief operating officer of the Centers for Advanced Healthcare, and executive director of the USF Physicians Group. “Our partnership with GE will provide our patients with access to state-of-the-art equipment, which only enhances our commitment to superior care and quality medicine."

The USF Health departments of cardiology, internal medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, otolaryngology, pediatrics, surgery and vascular surgery will practice in the new building.  In addition, USF Health will operate a patient education center, run by faculty and staff from the college of public health, offering counselors who will guide patients in finding more information about their healthcare diagnosis.

Funding for the $33 million STC comes from a multi-million dollar bond taken out by the USF Physicians Group, including funding from Tampa General Hospital, state grants and additional community support.

USF Health will open its second advanced healthcare facility, the Carol and Frank Morsani Center for Advanced Healthcare located on the USF campus, in the spring of 2008. 

USF Health is dedicated to creating a model of healthcare based on understanding the full spectrum of health. It includes the University of South Florida’s colleges of medicine, nursing, and public health; the schools of biomedical sciences as well as physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences; and the USF Physicians Group. With $310 million in research funding last year, USF is one of the nation’s top 63 public research universities and one of Florida’s top three research universities.

Source: USF Health