UC San Diego Health in La Jolla, California has acquired Alvarado Hospital Medical Center from Prime Healthcare for $200 million.

Renaming the 302-bed facility UC San Diego Health East Campus, UC San Diego Health will be able to tend to patients in the building’s new emergency department and remodeled intensive care unit. Patients will also have access to expanded behavioral health services, which UC San Diego Health will continue to grow. It is already planning to create a dedicated behavioral health patient care tower on the campus as part of a future collaboration with the County of San Diego.

“Behavioral healthcare services at East Campus Medical Center will move to a centralized model to provide a desperately needed continuum of comprehensive care for patients in the region, with fully integrated, interventional psychiatric services offered in both the inpatient and outpatient settings,” said Dr. Jeff Daskalakis, chair of the department of psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine and psychiatrist at UC San Diego Health, in a statement.

According to Daskalakis, the new operational model will help address delays and inaccessibility to care due to regional shortages of acute psychiatric beds. It also will create new training sites for medical students, therapy trainees, residents, advanced practice providers, and physician fellows.

UC San Diego Health is one of five academic medical centers within the University of California and offers primary, same-day, and specialty care clinics. It has 1,101 beds and is made up of UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest, UC San Diego Health East Campus, Jacobs Medical Center, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, Moores Cancer Center, Shiley Eye Institute, Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion, and Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute.

As part of a 10-year vision, the healthcare system is updating its Hillcrest medical center, where it will open a new outpatient surgical center in 2025. It also is planning to build a new replacement hospital and open new clinics throughout the region.

“We are strategically acquiring and building facilities, addressing short and long-term public health needs of our community and connecting more patients with high-quality care for the benefit of the entire region,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla.

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