Sunshine Coast University Hospital: The $2 Billion Investment in Regional Health

The Sunshine Coast University Hospital at Birtinya, the $2 billion public hospital that opened in 2017 as the Sunshine Coast's first major public hospital and the largest single infrastructure investment in the region's history, provides the 450-bed acute care facility that the Sunshine Coast's fast-growing population has needed to reduce the dependence on Brisbane-based hospitals that the lack of a major public hospital had created for the Sunshine Coast community. The hospital's co-location with the University of the Sunshine Coast's Health Sciences and Medicine campus creates the teaching hospital environment that the medical education of the next generation of Queensland health professionals requires and that the clinical research programs the hospital supports conducts in the learning health system model.

The emergency department at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, managing the emergency presentations of the 350,000-strong Sunshine Coast population and the visitor population that the tourist economy adds to the local demand, is one of the busiest emergency departments in Queensland outside of the metropolitan hospitals. The trauma centre designation, providing the highest level of trauma care for the Sunshine Coast and Noosa health districts and the visitors who suffer the traumatic injuries that the surf, the sporting activities, and the road network of a large coastal region generate, creates the clinical capability that the region's emergency care requires.

The University of the Sunshine Coast's medical program, established in partnership with Griffith University and delivered on the Birtinya Health Precinct campus adjacent to the hospital, provides the medical school education that the Sunshine Coast region's growing population warrants and that the workforce supply for the region's health system requires. The school's rural and regional medicine focus and the clinical placements in the Sunshine Coast and the surrounding regions that the program provides give the graduates who train in the Sunshine Coast the regional health experience that increases the likelihood of their choosing to work in regional settings after graduation.

The private health sector on the Sunshine Coast, including the Sunshine Coast Private Hospital and the Buderim Private Hospital that provide the private patient services that the private health insurance coverage of the Sunshine Coast's population sustains, complements the public hospital's capacity and provides the elective surgery and the specialist services that the private patients' preference for choice and the amenity of private care creates the demand for. The mixed public and private system's management of the overall Sunshine Coast health capacity creates the joint planning that the hospital boards and the health district management coordinate to avoid the duplication and the gaps that an uncoordinated mixed system creates.

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