Hospital’s party to be premature

Save-the-date cards already have been sent for the June 4 dedication of the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and dignitaries including famed architect I.M. Pei are slated to attend.

But the opening of the 525-bed Westwood hospital, plagued for years by cost overruns and construction delays, is being pushed back for at least the third time and may not occur until sometime in 2008.

The budget for the project, which will replace the UCLA Medical Center built in 1955, has ballooned to $829.3 million from an initial estimate of $597.7 million in 1998.

UCLA officials said this week it would be impossible to meet their latest goal -- shared with the UC Board of Regents in November -- to start treating patients at the new hospital in September.

That was already well beyond the original goal of late 2004.

At this point, officials are no longer projecting a move-in date.

Instead, an internal memo circulated this week said, “Ultimately, our goal is not a date certain, but to be absolutely confident that when we do make the move, the women, men and children who are our patients will experience seamless continuity of care.”

The memo was sent to department heads by Dr. David Callender, associate vice chancellor and chief executive of the UCLA Hospital System, and Dr. James Atkinson, senior medical director of clinical operations for UCLA Healthcare.

Steven A. Olsen, UCLA’s vice chancellor of finance, budget and capital programs, said the latest delays are necessary to complete installation of networking cables and equipment in 8,000 rooms. Olsen said he hoped to have a new opening date within a few weeks but “it’s clearly going to be substantially after the planned September date.”

“I’d rather underpromise and overperform than just pick a date out,” he said Friday.

Because so few companies specialize in helping large hospitals move, UCLA will have to find a new date that works for the movers, spokeswoman Dale Tate said.

“It’s kind of like planning the D-day invasion,” she said. “It’s pretty complicated to move a hospital like ours.”

Olsen said he hadn’t seen anything to suggest that construction costs would increase further. The costs are being covered by federal and state grants, bond revenue, hospital and campus reserves, and money raised by the university.

UC regents have been critical of the delays and added costs of the Westwood facility and a smaller rebuilding project for the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital. The hospitals they are replacing were damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

“What are you doing going forward to make sure ... that you’re not back here again?” UC Regent Joanne Kozberg, chairwoman of the Grounds and Buildings Committee, asked UCLA officials during a public hearing in November. Interim chancellor Norman Abrams assured the committee that “the end is in sight.”

UCLA officials have attributed previous delays and budget requests to the rising costs of construction materials such as steel and drywall, as well as to design changes to accommodate medical advances.

UCLA is proceeding nonetheless with plans for the June dedication, inviting James Lee Witt, who was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time of the ’94 quake, and Leon Panetta, who was President Clinton’s chief of staff at the time.

“There are some important people that already have it on their calendar, and save-the-date letters have gone out to lots of folks,” Tate said. “So rather than confuse the situation, we just decided to go ahead and move forward with it.”

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