On Monday, the first patients will walk into a gleaming new building in Boyle Heights, the new home of one of nation's largest public hospitals.
Two dozen outpatient clinics are to open at the new Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, part of a decades-long effort to replace the Depression-era hospital that has long been the linchpin of the region's public health and trauma system.
Monday's opening is the first step in a series of gradual moves into the new $1.02-billion facility, which covers 1.5 million square feet over the length of three city blocks and whose highest tower is eight stories. It is smaller than its cavernous predecessor, which rises 19 stories high and is 2 million square feet -- but the smaller space is lighter, brighter and cooler, thanks to beige-white walls, more windows and central air conditioning.
Still to come is a far more complicated endeavor: moving hundreds of hospitalized patients from the old building into its replacement next door. The move is scheduled for Oct. 17 and 18 and will involve an army of workers, including Air Force personnel.
The focus this week will be on the outpatient clinics, which last year recorded about half a million visits. The California Department of Public Health signed off on the opening of the clinics last week.
"This is a replacement that took 75 years to get to," said Pete Delgado, chief executive of Los Angeles County's LAC-USC Healthcare Network. "This is one of the most exciting phases."
County-USC's clinics are considered some of the busiest in the United States. The vast majority of its patients are uninsured or on Medicare or Medi-Cal, the government insurance programs for the elderly and poor. Only a tiny fraction have private insurance.
The range of outpatient services is broad. Many of the clinics will be housed in the westernmost of the new hospital's three towers, with hallway windows featuring a sweeping view of downtown Los Angeles and beyond, providing a much different experience than the old, mostly windowless clinical tower, said Dr. Stephanie Hall, County-USC's chief medical officer.
"On a clear day, you can see all the way out to the beach," Hall said. "It's light, bright and cheerful."
The interior design of the clinic tower is a big change, Hall said. In the old facility, patients from all the clinics needed to register in one centralized, crowded location, an uncomfortable experience marked by delays. At the new facility, patients will be able to go to decentralized locations to register for their appointments.
