This post is part of an extended Open Letter to the Iowa State Auditor.
A little over eleven years ago, in March of 2008, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) — which is owned by the state and administered by the Iowa Board of Regents — commenced a feasibility study for constructing and operating a new, dedicated children’s hospital. That study was in turn the result of decades of conversation about moving the various pediatric units into a single facility, thus building out UIHC’s infrastructure in a market already heavily influenced by the university’s massive, sprawling medical complex. Despite the fact that much of the campus would soon be inundated with catastrophic flooding, by 2011 that study had turned into an active and accelerated plan, with an initial budget of $270M. (Project timeline here.) [ Read more ]