UI Hospitals and Clinics admitted 50,324 patients during the year, including 1,545 newborns, compared to 41,809 inpatients and 1,450 births, respectively, in 2003. In addition, clinic visits to UI Hospitals and Clinics, UI Community Medical Service locations and UI Health Care outreach sites totaled 853,468, up from 842,983 the year before.

"Our faculty and staff are truly unsurpassed in providing high quality care to our patients and in serving the health care needs of our citizens," said Donna Katen-Bahensky, director and chief executive officer of UI Hospitals and Clinics. "Iowans can be justifiably proud of their impressive accomplishments."

Surgeons at Iowa's only academic medical center performed 20,644 major surgical operations, compared to 20,269 a year ago. That figure includes 317 organ and tissue transplants. Specialists also performed 69,236 minor surgeries, an increase from 59,566 last year.

Other major developments include:

• UI Hospitals and Clinics earned the state's first Magnet Hospital Award in recognition of its outstanding nursing care.
• The new Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and UI Maternity Center opened.
• The first group of emergency medicine resident physicians to train in Iowa begin their service in the Emergency Treatment Center and Level I Trauma Center.

UI Hospitals and Clinics also continues to prepare for the future. A major expansion and renovation project of the Emergency Treatment Center is scheduled to begin in the coming year. In addition, construction on the new Center of Excellence in Image-Guided Radiation Therapy is scheduled for completion in 2005. The state-of-the-art, $39.6 million facility will include the world's first center capable of image- and optic-guided stereotactic radiation delivery for all treatments.