UT Southwestern opens first academic medical center campus for southern Dallas County
UT Southwestern Medical Center at RedBird targets needed medical services including diabetes, heart, cancer, and primary care; neurology, culinary medicine, and pediatric programs coming soon
DALLAS – Sept. 17, 2022 – Thousands of residents, business owners, and regional leaders gathered Saturday at the community celebration for the opening of UT Southwestern Medical Center at RedBird, the largest of its regional campuses and the first to bring academic medicine to the booming southern Dallas region.
The two-story, 150,000-square-foot campus is UT Southwestern’s sixth regional outpatient medical center offering a multitude of services in primary, heart, and cancer care. The facility also provides lab services, a full-service pharmacy, and advanced imaging technologies such as MRI and CT scans, along with women’s health services such as mammography. Specialty care to come later this year includes neurological services from the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute and a Culinary Medicine Program.
UT Southwestern is ranked among the top 40 providers in the nation for its cancer, heart, and neurological care, as well as multiple specialties including diabetes, gastroenterology, geriatrics, and endocrinology services by U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals.
“I’ve been a patient with UT Southwestern for many years and I love the doctors. And this is right down the street from home – I didn’t have to go through the downtown traffic,” said Debra J. Wilson, a retiree from DeSoto and UTSW patient for 25 years who was one of the first patients seen at the center. “I love it. It just reminds me so much of UT Southwestern downtown.”
UT Southwestern at RedBird, located at the east end of the Reimagine RedBird development facing Camp Wisdom Road near U.S. 67 south of downtown Dallas, is expected to help meet the medical needs of patients who live or work in Oak Cliff, DeSoto, Duncanville, Cedar Hill, Lancaster, and surrounding areas seeking UT Southwestern’s distinctive brand of academic medical expertise, said John Warner, M.D., Executive Vice President for Health System Affairs.
“Southern Dallas residents have had a shortage of health care treatment options nearby, and UT Southwestern is looking forward to helping fill that void,” said Dr. Warner, a preventive cardiologist who is CEO of the UT Southwestern Health System. “We are committed to building lasting relationships within the community and have been engaging those who live and work in the area, so we understand their wide range of health care needs. Those conversations have informed our strategy for providing more convenient access to our specialists who work together to ensure the best outcomes and experience for our patients and their families.”
Primary care services at UT Southwestern Medical Center at RedBird also include management and screening for diabetes and depression. Cardiology services include preventive and diagnostic care to address conditions such as hypertension and abnormal heart rhythm. UT Southwestern’s Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, the region’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive center and ranked among the nation’s top 25 hospitals for cancer services, offers hematology/oncology care including a suite of new rooms for infusion therapy to treat cancer, sickle cell, and other illnesses. Later this year, the O’Donnell Brain Institute will provide neurological care at RedBird.
Patients are able to access a phlebotomy lab for collecting and testing blood and urine samples, a full-service pharmacy, and mammography and other advanced imaging, including MRI, CT scan, ultrasound, and X-ray.
UT Southwestern’s Culinary Medicine Program will eventually be among the innovative approaches to care available at UT Southwestern Medical Center at RedBird, with a focus on community education that empowers people to make diet, nutrition, and healthy foods a component of preventing and managing disease.
The new Medical Center at RedBird has both dedicated physicians and health care practitioners – some of whom live and grew up in the community and wanted to transfer their practice to the area – as well as physicians who split their time between RedBird and William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, recently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the No. 1 hospital in Dallas-Fort Worth for the sixth consecutive year.
Ericka Walker Williams, M.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Rheumatology, welcomed the first patient – who lives near RedBird. “She’d seen me one time before on the main campus and decided to come here to establish her care,” said Dr. Williams, who specializes in primary and preventive care, Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic lupus.
“Residents and businesses have clearly expressed the need for expanded, top-tier health care services in the community, so we’re excited, not only for the commitment to dozens of essential services tailored specifically for this region but also the level of care that UT Southwestern is known for providing,” said Peter Brodsky, majority owner and developer of Reimagine RedBird. “UTSW’s latest announcement further demonstrates the transformational momentum that continues to energize our RedBird project.”
About UT Southwestern Medical Center
UT Southwestern, one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 26 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 2,900 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 4 million outpatient visits a year.