UCHealth expands Highlands Ranch Hospital ahead of doctor shortage

UCHealth completed a major expansion of Highlands Ranch Hospital on June 24, adding a five-story tower, a cancer center, expanded stroke and cardiac programs and 14 new emergency department beds as Colorado braces for a physician shortage that could reach 2,400 to 3,000 doctors by 2030.

For Douglas County and the south metro area, the question is not just how much bigger the hospital is, but whether the added space can be matched with enough clinicians to keep wait times down and specialty care close to home. UCHealth said the emergency department expansion includes one bed set aside for victims of assault or domestic violence, along with an expanded outpatient lab.

The project added 314,000 square feet across two new buildings, including a 194,000-square-foot hospital tower and a 31,687-square-foot buildout of shell space on the top floor of the existing hospital. UCHealth said the work began July 24, 2023 and took just over two years to finish.

The hospital opened June 18, 2019 as Highlands Ranch’s first full-service hospital. UCHealth describes it as a 147-bed acute care hospital serving Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Roxborough, Sterling Ranch, Ken Caryl and Columbine. By July 2023, UCHealth said the hospital was already operating at capacity most days, a sign that demand had outpaced the original design.

One of the most technically demanding pieces of the expansion was the cancer center, where a state-of-the-art linear accelerator was installed behind six-foot concrete walls on all sides while the hospital remained open. UCHealth said the campus was designed from the start to include an adjacent cancer center, part of a broader effort to bring advanced care closer to Douglas County patients.

Layton Construction said the project took more than 500,000 man-hours and as many as 250 workers at peak, spread across 16 trades. Conor Ryan, Layton’s director of business development, said several team members live in Highlands Ranch and saw the work as especially meaningful because it improved care in their own community.

UCHealth leaders had already framed the expansion as a response to rising demand. Merle Taylor, president of UCHealth Highlands Ranch Hospital, said in 2023 that the hospital was exceeding its projected 10-year growth plan within just three years of opening. UCHealth later marked more than 55,000 total visits in the hospital’s first year, underscoring how quickly the facility became a regional draw.

The timing of the expansion also lines up with state workforce warnings. Colorado lawmakers cited a projected shortage of more than 2,400 physicians by 2030, and the governor’s office later said the deficit could reach 3,000 doctors. State materials also identified 123 health care shortage areas in Colorado as of January 2022, a reminder that new space alone will not solve access problems if staffing lags behind growth.