Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley has reported that the new $114 million Outpatient Center coming to Moreno Valley will be coming at the most needed time. He has said, “The medical services are at an implosion level in the County, and the new center will add a needed critical component to the different services provided by the County Hospital. The center is being built on the same campus as the 439-bed Riverside University Health System—Medical Center which will hopefully change the way patients receive treatment. The construction of this new facility by 2020 of over 200,000 square feet is hoping to fix the many years of deficit that the Medical Center has incurred since 2013, which saw a a shortfall of nearly $54 million, and has continued on until this fiscal year’s predicted downfall of almost $15 million. When the outpatient center opens it will increase medical services, not being provided before, to help generate more revenue. The center will provide a separate, dedicated place where people can come for relatively minor surgeries where the patient can then recover at home, which is being provided at other medical centers throughout the Inland Empire. The outpatient surgeries can be performed as the patients require them, and not wait for the availability of surgery rooms within the hospital—that are needed for more critical trauma operations. Also, once the outpatient surgeries have been completed, they won’t be taking up valuable hospital beds within the hospital itself. Ashley says, “We are going to be able to increase the capacity of our hospital without building any rooms. They are already available.”
Along with the outpatient center, the new building will add primary care and specialty physician groups to the campus, that will also include an imaging center, outpatient pharmacy, laboratory, rehabilitation gym, specialty and primary care clinics plus a lobby café. The building will be located on 17.4 acres of land on the north side of Cactus Avenue which will eclipse the main entrance of the medical center. A second floor pedestrian bridge will connect the outpatient building to the hospital. The project is being financed through a public-private partnership between the County of Riverside and Trammell Crow Co. Ashley says the community has been waiting a long time for this final of piece of the medical puzzle to be put in place.