Hixson-Lied Center for Clinical Excellence

With this project, the Nebraska Medical Center (NMC) merged two facilities into a single state-of the-art healthcare center. The Center contains four core functional areas: emergency, surgery, radiology and a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The combined capabilities of the facility make it the largest emergency department in the Midwest.

The emergency area contains four trauma, 13 critical care, three triage, one fast track, 12 exam and eight observations rooms. The radiology area contains four intervention suites; two procedure rooms; two x-ray rooms; three MRI suites; three CT suites and a seven-bay holding area. The surgery area contains 20 operating room suites, a blood lab and a frozen sections lab. The NICU contains 32 patient rooms, a family lounge, a waiting area and miscellaneous support areas. The facility supports both hospitals, which have a combined 750-bed capacity.

The Center was built between the University Tower and Clarkson Tower, a functioning utility plant and existing campus infrastructure from multiple utility plants. This required utilities to be relocated, many of which served the existing hospital facilities. Utilities work included constructing underground storm and sewer lines, the hospital's main electrical service, domestic water mains supplying both hospitals, 1,800 phone lines, cable lines and natural gas connections.