GALLERY: University of Iowa Health Care opens North Liberty medical campus

University of Iowa Health Care and Corridor leaders gathered Friday, April 11 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the university’s new North Liberty medical campus. The UI Health Care Medical Center North Liberty is located at 701 Forevergreen Road, near the intersection of Highway 965 and Forevergreen Road. The 469,000-square-feet, $525 million facility is the new home for the university’s Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation and officially opens April 28. Composed of a three-story hospital and five-story medical office building, the facility features:

• 36 inpatient beds
• 84 clinic exam rooms
• 14 emergency care rooms
• 12 operating rooms
• Two procedure rooms
• A daily, 24-hour drive-thru pharmacy
• Clinical lab services
• Advanced diagnostic imaging
• Shell space on level four to accommodate future exam rooms
• Physical therapy services, with indoor/outdoor rehab spaces
• Walk-in clinic for same-day treatment of acute orthopedic injuries
• Orthotics and prosthetics
• Dedicated space for teaching, research, and community education programs
• Cafeteria and gift shop

“This facility offers a new level of comprehensive orthopedic care that has not previously been available in the state,” said Dr. Denise Jamieson, UI vice president for Medical Affairs and dean of the Carver College of Medicine. Calling it a “game-changer” for UI’s doctors, faculty, staff and patients, Dr. Jamieson expressed eagerness to demonstrate the clinic’s usefulness statewide “and how it will increase access to patient care services while also advancing medical research and education.” University of Iowa professor and chair of the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the Carver College of Medicine Dr. J. Lawrence Marsh said the new campus is critical to keeping pace with the state’s aging population. “The population of Iowa and elsewhere wants to keep moving. They want to stay active, and to the extent possible, they want to be pain free, and that's what orthopedics is all about…We have always been the center of the state that takes care of the most complex problems, the most challenging patients, the referrals of complications from elsewhere, and we will continue to do that. That is what we do. But this facility, this parking, these clinics, that physical therapy down there at the end, walk-in injury clinics, all of these things allow us to expand our care to a wider range of population,” he said, adding that MCNL will be a “one-stop coordinated care for orthopedic patients.” He also praised the facility’s new education center, stating that the university will be able to expand its research, and the new biomechanics lab will provide innovative learning experiences for future generations of medical students. “Sometimes it's complicated on our university campus, because we have so many things going on, and when we want to optimize or innovate, it's complicated,” said Bradley Haws, CEO of UI Health Care. “We view this as an ideal place where we can innovate and actually challenge and develop orthopedic care into an even more renowned service that we provide. And this will provide us really a learning laboratory from which we can do that, and it's one of the things that we're most excited about, that we can maybe take some of those lessons and then interject those lessons back onto the university and the downtown campus as we go forward.” Mr. Haws said that the extra space is critical for addressing the needs of not only Johnson County residents, but all Iowans. “We still, as UI Health Care, can't take all of the transfer requests that we get from the state,” he said. “So this expansion of capacity, together with the downtown campus, really allow us to treat more patients that are being referred to us, so that we can provide the excellent and world class care that we do across our domains.”

Facility faced opposition

The university broke ground on MCNL Oct. 14, 2021, finishing the project “on time and under budget,” UI President Barbara Wilson said at Friday’s event. Built with the purpose to better address the burgeoning need for tertiary and quaternary care, relieve the increasingly tight quarters of the main medical campus and provide a state-of-the-art training facility for future doctors, it faced opposition from multiple fronts during its inception. The university was initially denied a state certificate of need in February 2021 amid criticism it would create unfair competition with other Corridor community hospitals and duplicate existing services. According to a May 2021 CBJ article, former hospital Mercy Iowa City was among those protesting the facility’s proposal, calling a press conference “to pan the project as an unnecessary duplication of services, a waste of state resources and a competitive grab that threatened the survival of community hospitals.” The university bought the community hospital in January 2024 when it declared bankruptcy. The 60-acre North Liberty campus also opens less than a month after Steindler Orthopedic unveiled its 100,000-square-foot, $65 million facility two miles away at 2301 Steindler Way in North Liberty. Steindler officials say the addition will keep the costs of outpatient orthopedic procedures in check by providing a competitive option, as well as providing private physicians in Johnson County “a competitive chance at staying in private practice,” according to a March 2025 CBJ article.

Addressing the physician shortage

U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a physician herself, said the state-of-the-art facility will be crucial for attracting doctors to the state. Currently, Iowa is ranked 44th in the nation for patient-to-physician ratio per 100,000 population, according to the Iowa Medical Society. In 2023, Iowa had a 75% adequacy rate for health care workforce supply versus demand. By 2036, this rate is expected to decrease to 71%, according to the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration’s projections. “The facility alone makes it easier for patients, which is important,” Rep. Miller-Meeks said, at Friday’s event. “But as I said, it’s the beauty of the facility, the state-of-the-art, the technology, it really just pales in comparison to the quality and the excellence of the providers who are here. And this is going to help attract more high-quality, excellent providers to our state, whether they're physicians, nurses, PAs, occupational therapists, physical therapists. And it's also going to help to generate the type of research that is really going to help medicine to progress and be forward-thinking.” According to university officials, the new facility has added approximately 300 new positions with its opening. On Saturday, April 12, University of Iowa Health Care will hold an open house for the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hospital tours, Iowa Hawkeye student-athlete meet & greets, sports challenges and demonstrations and hands-on STEM activities for kids will be available.