MADISON, Wis. — UW Health unveiled its new Eastpark Medical Center on Tuesday.
The facility, on Madison's east side, is the largest medical facility opening up across the nation in 2024.
The sprawling campus is more than 475,000 square feet. UW Health said convenience of care was top of mind when planning this space.
“This facility is very different than most of our ambulatory facilities around Dane County and northern Illinois in that it provides everything that we need to provide for a patient,” UW Health Chief Operating Officer Peter Newcomer said.
Newcomer said the new Eastside Medical Center offers more 40 types of speciality care. The hope is that it creates a hub for patients to have access to innovative and cutting edge care, all in one convenient spot.
The innovation in care starts with the facility housing Wisconsin’s only national cancer institute with a comprehensive cancer center. It will also be one of the first facilities in the world to offer upright proton therapy.
The facility will also have Wisconsin’s first coordinated care program for women’s health, with a handful of specialities.
“We provide things that you can’t get in ambulatory medical facility in the country. We provide things that you can’t get in every health system in the country,” Newcomer said. “That includes things like proton therapy. But it also includes having the expertise of our academic physicians who do research on the many diseases that [patients come to us to care for] and actually enroll people in trials for that condition. So they can get them the most cutting edge treatment available in the world, in Dane County, Wisconsin.”
When it comes to design, Mike McKay — the director of planning, design, construction and real estate for UW Health — said his team took an approach to keep nature as a big part of patients’ care.
They also put sustainability on the top of their list, with added features throughout the space.
“One of the best features of the building is our solar farm, which is located on top of the structured parking facility,” McKay said. “That is the largest such installation of a solar farm in the state of Wisconsin.”
McKay said the solar farm will produce 20% of the building power with the sun.
Eastpark Medical Center will open to some patients on Oct. 28, with different specialties opening up throughout November. The facility will house more than 600 staff members once it is fully open.