The Lennar Foundation Medical Center allows University of Miami students to get personalized health care and outpatient services on campus, with convenience.
Though the $145 million 200,000 square-foot outpatient center opened its doors for patients and visitors on Dec. 5, UM held a community open house event to commemorate the Student Health Center’s relocation into its new home inside Lennar.
The Student Health Center, located on the first floor, comprises 16 exam rooms compared to the 11 in the old location. The increased amount of rooms allows for an increase of student visits per day. Medical practitioners will be able to see more than 200 students per day in the new facility, said Dr. Howard Anapol, UHealth Medical Director.
Chief Administrative Officer Ben Riestra said he expects the whole medical center to be able to provide care for 1,500 to 2,000 patients a day.
“It’s all based on a foundation of empathy and compassion,” Riestra said. “And it’s about this geographic location, specifically, on our main Coral Gables academic campus, where accessibility to academic health care has historically been primarily in downtown. Now the same high academic outpatient services are here in Coral Gables.”
The new facility provides specialized, individualized care and all outpatient services, not just ones found at clinics. Among the services provided at new center are outpatient surgery, outpatient therapy, radiation and chemotherapy for cancer treatment, physical therapy and a center with MRI and X-Ray CT scans.
In order to provide patients and staff with a convenient way to pick up their prescriptions and other necessities, the new building is equipped with a retail Walgreens pharmacy. It also includes laboratories where tests can be examined. Both of these additions included in the construction for convenience purposes.
The third floor of the center houses the Department of Sports Medicine and EXOS, a high-tech bootcamp-like program that helps people reach optimal health.
“We have physical therapists doing the rehabilitation stuff on this side of the gym, and we offer programs that range from athletes to older adults, to high school kids, to youth,” said Tim Hebberger, a member of the EXOS program. “We focus more on a movement-centric approach and look for imbalances and weaknesses and things that can be corrected through movement. And then we go about fixing those.”
Lennar is focused on providing health services of the highest quality beginning with its patients, said Dr. Thinh H. Tran, UHealth chief clinical officer and chief operating officer.
“You cannot have happiness, prosperity without health, and this building, this health system, University of Miami’s health system, is all about you,” Tran said. “This building is all about community, it’s about caring for each other, it’s about providing wellness and health for us as a community.”