Kuopio University Hospital is celebrating its 60-year-anniversary in 2019. Our entire hospital will be reformed over the next decade, by means of new buildings and renovations. The basis of the reform is the new hospital building that was opened in the summer of 2015. The hospital's core functions are located there, e.g. operating rooms, intensive care unit and childbirth department. This building covers an area of over 35,000 brm2, and the construction costs were approximately 100 million euros. In the autumn of 2015, the new building for the Cancer Center was also completed, where e.g. the radiotherapy unit, oncology outpatient clinic, infusion unit and particle accelerator are located.
The new building at the Kuopio University Hospital, built in stages, will include e.g. inpatient wards, outpatient clinics, imaging facilities and technical facilities. The majority (70 %) of the patient rooms are single rooms. The total renovation of the building, including the old main hospital from 1959, is about 60,000 square meters in size. At the end of the project, the present inpatient ward building will be dismantled.
The cost of the entire renovation and extension project is approximately 164 million euros. The renovation phase will last until 2025.
The first part of the new ten-storey building will be completed in early 2020. The second phase of the new building will be completed in 2022, after which it will be possible to renovate KUH's oldest building, the 60-year-old Main Hospital.
The renovation has also enhanced patients’ involvement and commitment to self-care through modern IT solutions. Also recording of nursing is transferred more close to the patient to the patients room. This will reduce the need for office space, and the nurses will work closer to the patients.
Pharmacotherapy is automated and more widely deployed in intelligent cabinets to better manage drug stores and further release nurses' time for nursing.