Vanderbilt University Medical Center held a ribbon-cutting ceremony today to mark the opening of its latest addition: the $169 million Critical Care Tower.

“One of the things Vanderbilt holds dearly is innovation,” said Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine Jeff Balser. “We have innovation constantly going on in research. We have innovation around everything we do with education. We also make sure that we have innovation going on in everything that is happening with our care. This new tower is a statement of that innovation.”

The Critical Care Tower is part of the Vanderbilt Hospital complex, located between the VUH South Tower and Vanderbilt Clinic buildings. The 329,000 sq. ft. complex adds 102 private patient rooms and 12 new operating rooms to the hospital. Several floors of the tower are currently empty and will be used for future expansion.

Technology is playing a critical role for the new building.

“The Critical Care Tower is a place where the sickest patients in the Middle Tennessee region will be cared for, and will receive care that allows the latest technology,” Balser said. “Not just the technology available now, but this tower was designed with the notion that it can accommodate the rapidly evolving technology over the next decade.”

In addition to the latest medical equipment, patient rooms include flat-screen televisions with Internet access and access to a digital patient education system.

While Medical Center staff members have worked for the last month to move in supplies and prepare the building, patients will move into the tower on Saturday, Nov. 14, said Cynthia Facemire, who is leading the transition team for the Hospital.

Starting at 8 a.m. that day, patients will be relocated from the existing intensive care units in the North and South VUH towers to the Critical Care Tower, with approximately one patient moving into each unit every 30 minutes. The new operating rooms will officially open on Nov. 15.