Today, UT Health San Antonio is celebrating the first full year of inpatient care at the UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital, positioned at the heart of a growing local healthcare landscape within San Antonio’s Medical Center.
In the year since the hospital opened its doors on Dec. 10, 2024, UT Health San Antonio’s healthcare expertise, services and delivery of high-quality patient care for the community have only gained momentum, as evidenced by these key metrics:
Among the hospital’s many first-year accomplishments are 12 standout achievements to celebrate 12 months of service to South Texas patients and their families:
- Earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® — a top national symbol of credibility and trust that reflects the hospital’s excellence in safety, rigorous performance standards and high-quality patient care.
- Opened a dedicated oncology unit, staffed by a specialized cancer care team providing inpatient chemotherapy and full-spectrum cancer care.
- Established a Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy program, a critical community need and region-defining service that will deliver advanced immunotherapies and specialized care for patients with blood cancers and blood disorders.
- Recruited the first cohort of graduate nurses from the university’s School of Nursing, strengthening the hospital’s skilled workforce and reflecting UT Health San Antonio’s commitment as an academic health center to train and retain exceptional nurses for the community.
- Launched UT Health San Antonio’s first Blood Donor Center ensuring lifesaving blood availability for surgeries, blood disorders and cancer care.
- Became the first hospital in San Antonio to provide focused ultrasound, a transformative, neurosurgical technology for patients with essential tremor.
- Expanded access to an Advanced Care Clinic for primary care patients and patients with cancer who need immediate advanced evaluation or hospital-level care.
- Secured College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation, the national gold standard in laboratory excellence that affirms the hospital meets the most rigorous standards in diagnostic accuracy, safety and reliability.
- Performed numerous innovative precision procedures, including robotic lymph-node dissection for testicular cancer, a minimally invasive approach that shortens recovery time and helps preserve fertility.
- Became the first hospital in Texas to advance safer, multimodal pain management by deploying a new FDA-approved non-opioid pain medication following orthopaedic and podiatric surgeries.
- Opened recruitment for the hospital’s first inpatient phase 2 cancer clinical trial, expanding access to promising new therapies and advancing cancer research and treatment in South Texas.
- Expanded care to seven floors, increasing capacity for patients who need expert surgical care, chemotherapy, intensive care, advanced imaging and cellular therapy.
In reflecting on the first full year of operations, what stands out for the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Jeff Flowers, MBA, FACHE, is everything the hospital staff has accomplished together.
“The work of opening a brand new, first-ever hospital while expanding services, bringing new floors online and transitioning our Mays Cancer Center and Medical Arts and Research Center — and soon, our Center for Brain Health — into hospital outpatient departments was an enormous undertaking. And this team accomplished it all in just 12 months.”
For Flowers, the success of the hospital hinges on the institutional pride of those working for UT Health San Antonio combined with their shared passion to deliver excellent patient care.
“These have served as the catalyst for teams working together across department and facility lines,” he said. “Our desire is to set a new bar by which our staff and providers take joy in working here and where the patients routinely experience sustained excellence in service, care and outcomes.”
A bold vision for Year 2
Flowers anticipates that this coming year for the hospital will bring continued expansion of surgical services to support the needs of UT Health San Antonio providers and their patients.
“Areas such as surgical oncology, colorectal and thoracic surgery will expand over the next 12 months. Oncology services will continue to grow with the anticipated treatment of our first stem cell and cellular therapy patients moving us toward FACT [Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy],” Flowers said. “Research activities will increase as we partner with our faculty to identify opportunities for us to bring cutting-edge therapies and life-changing treatments to South Texas.”
Likewise, the continued integration of advanced technology is a given, Flowers said.
“Investing in new technology and equipment in imaging and in the operating rooms that help treat or diagnose our patients is part of our regular evaluation of how we deliver care,” he said. “Virtual-care platforms are fundamental to our care delivery model and are also likely to expand across disciplines.”
In addition to the robotics-assisted surgeries and procedures already emerging across specialty care areas, the use of artificial intelligence to support clinical care and make teams more efficient and productive is something the hospital’s teams will continue to embrace, Flowers said. These expansions will further strengthen the region’s capacity to care for South Texas’ diverse populations, including Hispanic communities that experience higher rates of cancer, diabetes and other chronic illnesses, he added.
Advancing the broader mission
As for how the hospital specifically is advancing the broader mission of UT Health San Antonio, Flowers is quick to note the comprehensive microcosm of care inside the hospital that embodies everything UT Health San Antonio embraces as core to its mission.
“We have residents and fellows onsite every day as part of our clinical care teams advancing our education mission. Our faculty and staff are pushing the research mission in the ambulatory setting — which will soon include inpatient, hospital-based trials that give patients access to studies not otherwise available in South Texas. And our specialists provide leading care within our clinics and hospital that improve the lives of our patients in fulfillment of our clinical mission,” said Flowers.
“Literally every day we are making lives better for the patients receiving life-changing treatments and care that allow them to heal, to extend their health span and to restore hope for themselves and for their families.”
UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital is a premier patient- and family-centered hospital providing specialty surgeries, pioneering procedures and advanced cancer care, integrating our research, teaching and patient care services that make us unique in the market. We have a multidisciplinary approach to complex care and provide access to more clinical trials to advance care than any other hospital in South Texas. It delivers treatment for both common and complex conditions, from cancer and neurological diseases to spine and joint conditions, through personalized care rooted in discovery. Uniting breakthrough research, modern technology and world-class clinical expertise, the hospital stands as a beacon of hope for patients and those who love them.
It is the inaugural hospital of UT Health San Antonio, the academic health center of The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio), that offers a comprehensive network of inpatient and outpatient care facilities staffed by health professionals who provide more than 2.5 million patient visits each year.