New hospital in Irvine set to open

A new hospital opens in Irvine next month. The new Hoag Hospital Irvine takes the place of Irvine Regional Hospital, which occupied the same building before it closed a year-and-a-half ago.

On the outside, Hoag Hospital Irvine looks pretty much the same as the old Irvine Regional, aside from new landscaping. But inside, work crews gutted and redid the place, installing lots of high-tech tools for doctors to use.

Robert Braithwaite, chief administrative officer of Hoag Hospital Irvine, says the facility fills a gap in southern Orange County.

"Irvine is a significant city. It’s a city of over 210,000 people and during the daytime, it actually swells to over 325,000. That’s a lot of individuals that need health care and currently in the city, there isn’t another general acute-care hospital," Braithwaite says. "And so the creation of Hoag Hospital Irvine really provides a needed service — a service that this community has been without for the last 18 months or so."

It cost nearly $85 million to renovate the 154-bed hospital.

While it’s a general hospital, many of its beds are designed for orthopedic patients. That's something there will be a lot of as Orange County’s population ages.