U-M Health will renovate part of University Hospital, creating 26 incremental private observation rooms to help ease crowding in the emergency department, after approval Thursday from the U-M Board of Regents.

The 20,000-square-foot space (formerly the Mott Hospital unit) would house 26 incremental private observation rooms. The renovation is expected to be completed in spring 2025.

Part of the reason for the renovation is the eventual ending of a professional services agreement which allows Trinity Health Ann Arbor and U-M Health to jointly operate a 26-bed inpatient unit.

“Over the last several years, U-M Health teams have provided excellent inpatient care to patients at Trinity Health Ann Arbor, which also helped reduce crowding in our adult ED,” said Charles Reuland, chief operations integration officer. “However, Trinity has recently experienced similar high case volumes and has now requested that the shared agreement end so they may use the space to fulfill their own capacity needs.

“ED and inpatient capacity issues continue to challenge our regional hospitals throughout our communities.”

There are additional factors that led the leadership team to consider the renovation to University Hospital, including:

• Demand for our patient care is high and will increase in the future, according to a recent 10-year strategic analysis. 
• Once complete, the additional unit could provide flexible bed capacity options during future renovations to other Adult Hospital units.
• Community demand for emergency medical services continues to increase for all our regional hospitals.

The estimated cost of the project is $18 million. Funding will be provided from University of Michigan Health resources.

About Michigan Medicine: At Michigan Medicine, we advance health to serve Michigan and the world. We pursue excellence every day in our 11 hospital and hundreds of clinics statewide, as well as educate the next generation of physicians, health professionals and scientists in our U-M Medical School.

Michigan Medicine includes the U-M Medical School and University of Michigan Health, which includes the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, University Hospital, the Frankel Cardiovascular Center, Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan Health-West, University of Michigan Health-Sparrow and the Rogel Cancer Center. The U-M Medical School is one of the nation's biomedical research powerhouses, with total research funding of more than $777 million.

More information is available at www.michiganmedicine.org