In an area that includes Skid Row – home to roughly half of Los Angeles County’s homeless residents – Dignity Health’s California Hospital Medical Center has finished a $215 million expansion of its emergency and maternity services.
In January, the hospital opened a new four-story, 140,000-square-foot Grand Tower focused on emergency and maternity care. The tower more than doubles the emergency department, adding six trauma bays and 47 exam rooms. It also includes a new neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and a redesigned birth center.
“That was supported in part by a capital campaign that raised $25 million,” said Susan Shum, chief philanthropy officer for Dignity Health–California Hospital Medical Center Foundation. “I think that was a big victory for the hospital and for L.A.”
The hospital has also raised flexible funds for emergency needs – including surge staffing during heat waves and cooling supplies for unhoused patients. With statewide seismic deadlines approaching, the investment keeps lifesaving services downtown during a potential disaster while maintaining the hospital’s immediate safety-net commitments.
The new layout adds additional private exam rooms, creating faster handoffs from the ambulance bay to a bed and reducing hallway boarding. Dedicated space for behavioral-health crises and isolation rooms also improve safety for patients and staff. On the maternity side, family-centered NICU rooms and a redesigned birth center aim to keep newborns and parents together longer – small changes that can improve in the downtown area.
The project was slated for completion in 2020, with Scottsdale, Arizona-based Devenney Group as the design firm and San Francisco-based Swinerton Builders as the construction contractor. Pandemic-era delays and supply chain disruptions pushed back the timeline.
The downtown-based hospital was founded in 1887, making it one of the oldest hospitals in Los Angeles County. Its mission is to deliver “compassionate, high-quality, affordable care and to serve and advocate for people who are poor or disenfranchised,” the hospital’s website reads.
“We’re unusual for a hospital fundraising operation in that we get a lot of grants, including public grants, because of the nature of the work we do and the populations that we serve,” said Shum. She noted that giving to has remained stable, even as some individual donors shifted donations toward Los Angeles wildfire relief. The hospital is working to build up its private philanthropy and counts several private foundations among its generous supporters.
“We don’t do a lot of ‘grateful patient’ fundraising, which is different from a number of hospital philanthropy departments, but we have donors at all levels. I know it sounds like a cliché, but every gift makes a difference.”
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