U.'s clinics, 3 hospitals to work under new logo

Facilities keep names under the 'University Health Care' banner

Grant Hunsaker was the first patient when University Hospital opened July 11, 1965. And he was on the front row for the hospital's 40th birthday party Wednesday, where hospital officials announced a name change.

University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics is no more. The U.'s three hospitals — University Hospital, Huntsman Cancer Hospital and University Neuropsychiatric Institute — and its 80 general and specialty clinics including the John A. Moran Eye Center and the University Orthopaedic Clinic, will now operate under the banner of University Health Care, said Michael K. Young, U. president. Their individual names won't change.

Last year the facilities combined logged 850,000 patient visits. Some UHC programs, including the Intermountain Burn Unit, are the only service of their kind in the Intermountain West.

Hundreds of patients, community members and staffers gathered on the front plaza at the entrance to University Hospital, the health care system's flagship facility, to see the unveiling of the new logo and celebrate the birthday, an event that ended with root beer floats.

The change was made in part because research showed that while University Hospital is very well known for its health care, the U.'s role in providing other health care services within the community is less well understood, according to Kim Wirthlin, associate health sciences vice president for marketing and communication.

Hunsaker was one of the few people at the birthday party who'd been there when it all began. He was 6 years old and had been in the Salt Lake County Hospital for four months as a result of burns he suffered in a house fire, when one of the hospital staffers asked "Who wants to go first?" Ambulance attendants, National Guardsmen and police officers were standing by for the big move to the new hospital. He remembers another little boy, Billy, said, "I don't." And before he knew it, Hunsaker had been whisked into the first ambulance to lead the train of vehicles heading up the hill. When he arrived, dignitaries including then-Gov. Cal Rampton were waiting to make a fuss over him. He stayed in the hospital until September.

Hunsaker, surrounded by his wife and his own children, was presented with a gigantic basket of University Hospital souvenirs to commemorate his place in hospital history. A huge photo of him in 1965 was also displayed.

Rick Fullmer, CEO of University Hospital, noted that it cost $15.6 million to build the original 220-bed hospital in 1965 — about one-third the cost of the critical-care pavilion the hospital opened in 2003.

That's not all that's changed. A semiprivate room overnight in the earliest days cost $31, compared to $765 a night now. There were 600 employees and 158 medical school clinical faculty; today there are 4,330 employees and 900 clinical faculty. And while 843 babies were born at the hospital during the first full year it operated, 3,419 debuted there in 2004.

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