The University of Hawaiʻi Clinics at Kakaʻako, located at an ʻewa/makai section on the campus of the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) and University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center, is the first multi-purpose combined research and medical care clinic to open on a UH campus.
“The most important goal of our health research is to fight the diseases that strike our citizens disproportionately, especially those diseases that shorten their lives,” said Jerris Hedges, JABSOM dean. “The new clinic has unique features to help in those studies of illnesses including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, HIV and age-related impairment.”
Facility features
The new facility of approximately 3,550 square feet includes a waiting/reception room, office and charting areas, eight exam rooms and two procedure rooms. An additional room accommodates a dual energy absorptiometry (DXA) machine. The DXA measures bone density (useful in osteoporosis diagnosis and research) and also can measure the amounts of fat and muscle by regions of the body, helpful in the study of metabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes and heart disease, and in fitness studies examining how to build muscle and strength. The machine will be employed in studies of frailty in the elderly and bone density changes related to HIV and various therapies.
The Clint Spencer Clinic, operated by JABSOM’s Hawaiʻi Center for AIDS and directed by Dominic Chow, was the first to move into the renovated space. Formerly located at 677 Ala Moana, the Clint Spencer Clinic provides primary care as well as consultative care for all of Hawaiʻi’s HIV-infected population.
A variety of other researchers will also use the clinical research space, including investigators monitoring patients in UH Cancer Center clinical trials and others collaborating in health research with JABSOM and the cancer center, including faculty in the UH schools of nursing, pharmacy and social work.
UH Clinics at Kakaʻako is operated by JABSOM, in collaboration with the University Health Partners of Hawaiʻi, which is the JABSOM faculty practice plan. Cecilia Shikuma, director of the Hawaiʻi Center for AIDS, oversees the facility.
The space for the new UH Clinics at Kakaʻako originally housed offices. It was renovated using $1.8 million in JABSOM building reserve funds. Before occupancy, the new site was blessed during an open house last month, held in connection with December’s launch of the “Hawaiʻi to Zero” campaign, aimed at eliminating HIV in Hawaiʻi.
—By Tina Shelton
