On Dec. 7, Wishard Memorial Hospital will close and all services will transition to the new Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Eskenazi Health campus. To protect patient privacy, all media coverage of the patient move must be coordinated through Eskenazi Health Public Affairs & Communications. Family members of patients being moved on Dec. 7 may call our move hotline at 630.6300 to check the status and location of their loved one.

For the first time in more than 40 years a completely new Indianapolis downtown hospital campus will open when Eskenazi Health begins caring for patients at the new Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital on Saturday, Dec. 7. This date will mark the official first day for the new Eskenazi Hospital and the final day of operation for Wishard Memorial Hospital, which operated for a century just east of the new Eskenazi Health campus. Of the more than 1,000 public hospitals in America, Eskenazi Health will be the first new complete public hospital campus relocation since Chicago’s John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital opened in 2002 to replace Cook County Hospital.

In a highly coordinated process involving Eskenazi Health, Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services, the U.S. Navy Reserves, the Indiana National Guard, MESH, hundreds of volunteers and ambulance services from across Central Indiana, patients currently receiving care at Wishard will begin moving to the new Eskenazi Health campus at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning. 

"We have been building toward this exciting moment for more than four years, and today we are elated and filled with gratitude to take this path down 10th Street, to move all of us together, hand-in-hand with our patients and our community from Wishard to our new Eskenazi Health campus," said Dr. Lisa Harris, CEO of Eskenazi Health. "This new day, new hospital and new opportunity to provide welcoming, compassionate and patient-centered care to our community — it is all here. And like never before, today Eskenazi Health is here for you."

After hundreds of elected officials, community leaders and members of the public joined Eskenazi Health on Nov. 16 for a ribbon-cutting, dedication ceremony and public tours that saw more than 4,000 explore the new campus, the new Eskenazi Health campus underwent final preparations to begin caring for patients. Eskenazi Health opens on time and on budget.

"We are deeply grateful to our community for all of your support in making this moment possible and for providing our patients, our community’s most vulnerable and all of Central Indiana with a singular new, welcoming health resource to provide care for generations to come," said Matthew R. Gutwein, president and CEO of Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County. "Our ability to complete this project on time and on budget, to contract with minority-, women-, veteran- and individuals with disabilities-owned businesses, to engage fully our community and its leaders in every step of the process, and to deliver this new health campus is only possible with your support. We are grateful."

The new Eskenazi Health campus will provide patient-centered care on 37 acres at the western end of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus, between Michigan Street and 10th Street in downtown Indianapolis. The 1.3-million-square-foot facility includes a 315-inpatient-bed hospital with 19 operating rooms and four interventional labs, 12 labor and delivery rooms, a 90-bed emergency department with a 20-bed clinical decision unit, more than 200 ambulatory clinic exam rooms and an adult Level I trauma center. The hospital links functionally and operationally to the adjoining Outpatient Care Center, providing entry for inpatients, outpatients and visitors and approximately 110 exam rooms. The Fifth Third Bank Building also links with and supports the Outpatient Care Center and the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital, housing faculty and support functions as well as related entities serving and supporting Eskenazi Health. The project also includes a 2,700-car parking garage, the second largest parking garage in the state. 

Eskenazi Health opens ahead of goals for minority-, women- and veteran-owned business participation, with 17 percent of construction contracts going to minority-owned businesses, 8 percent going to women-owned businesses, and 6 going to veteran-owned businesses. Additionally, 90 percent of construction contracts went to Indiana firms, including nearly 400 companies from the Indianapolis/Marion County metropolitan area.

The new Eskenazi Health campus also completed construction on pace to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design® (LEED) Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for the entire campus. This distinction would make it the first such health campus in the United States registered publicly in the national LEED® database. Eskenazi Health anticipates final USGBC certification in 2014.

Eskenazi Health also creates a welcoming environment of health and healing through an extensive art collection, which studies show contributes to improved health outcomes. Following an extensive public engagement and comment process, Eskenazi Health’s art committee selected artists that represent the rich diversity of the Indianapolis community, including native Hoosiers and artists born or living in Indianapolis, and artists representing women, minorities and people with disabilities. More than half – 57.8 percent – of the full art program comes from local Indiana artists, while 47 percent of the artists are minorities, 31.5 percent are female, 10.5 percent are veteran, 5.2 percent are individuals with disabilities and 5.2 percent are seniors.

More than 10,000 individuals worked on the construction site and contributed to the development of the Eskenazi Health campus. Eskenazi Health’s construction also outperformed local, state and national averages for work site safety. Eskenazi Health’s construction was projected to create 4,400 jobs from its inception in 2009. Marion County voters approved construction of new facilities to replace the current Wishard Memorial Hospital campus in the Nov. 3, 2009 election, with 85 percent support for the measure. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi of Indianapolis contributed $40 million to the project’s capital campaign in June 2011, and Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County recognized their gift in naming the new hospital the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital and naming the campus and system Eskenazi Health. The new Eskenazi Health campus opens, and the Wishard Memorial Hospital campus closes, at 7 a.m. on Dec. 7.

CONTACT: Todd Harper
Phone: 317.880.4785
Pager: 317.310.5972 
Email: todd.harper@eskenazihealth.edu