Former alum and 10 News Reporter Lauren Reynolds proud to stand with Jacobs in groundbreaking ceremony
More than 200 San Diegans, including former student turned CEO of At Home Nursing Care, Lauren Reynolds, turned out in 2012 to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Jacobs Medical Center, a new 364 room facility that will houses three new specialty hospitals: the Hospital for Cancer Care, the Hospital for Advanced Surgery and the Hospital for Women and Infants.
The hospital opened in 2016, and Lauren Reynolds, alumni of UC San Diego and founder/Administrator of At Home Nursing Care, was proud to serve as Master of Ceremonies for the groundbreaking. Lauren Reynolds agreed to participate in the groundbreaking which took place on April 9, 2012.
Named for benefactors Joan and Irwin Jacobs, who donated $75 million dollars to the project, the Jacobs Medical Center will have private rooms, interactive technology, and will serve as a bridge between research being carried out at UC San Diego and bedside hospital care.
Lauren Reynolds, President and C.E.O. of At Home Nursing Care, the leading provider of in home care across San Diego, served as Master of Ceremonies. She is an active member of the Alumni Association and graduated from UC San Diego in 1994.
“I am so proud of my alma mater,” Reynolds remarked, “…it’s growth and reach, it’s impact on our health care, our economy and quality of life. And it’s vision for the future, which brings us to this celebration today.”
Marye Anne Fox, Chancellor during the groundbreaking, noted, “in addition to having state of the art equipment and facilities, [The Jacobs Medical Center] has also been designed to be patient-focused.”
The center utilizes wireless health, portable medical records and other innovations.
Dean David Brenner, Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences and the Dean of the School of Medicine remarked that when the center opened in 2016, “We will extend the reach of the UC San Diego Cancer Center to in-patient care, given new hope to people who need it most.”
Cancer is the leading cause of death in San Diego, the goal of the Center is to improve outcomes, reduce recovery times and to draw on the latest medical breakthroughs happening on the UC San Diego campus.
Lauren Reynolds started her own home care company after her mother, Marykay Reynolds, died from breast cancer at the young age of 58. That experience inspired Lauren Reynolds to open At Home Nursing Care, a caregiving, home health and care management service that helps clients in San Diego County and the West Side of Los Angeles County.
“Care will be highly personalized, delivered with extraordinary precision based on a person’s genotype and unique set of environmental influences”, Brenner added.
Irwin Jacobs and his wife Joan joined Carol Vassiliadis, who donated to a wing of the hospital, Congressman Bob Filner, Mayor Jerry Sanders, Dr. Brenner, and Interim UC San Diego Health System C.E.O. Thomas V. McAfee in shoveling the first ceremonial dig of the project.
Jacobs commented that when he first arrived at UC San Diego in the 1960’s, before he launched Qualcomm, there were only a handful of buildings. At that time, they were celebrating the construction of the one and only engineering building. He remarked that the growth on the La Jolla campus is extraordinary and joked that he and his wife plan to be around when the Medical Center bearing their name opens its doors in 2016.
Jacobs Medical Center Quick Facts: Construction Costs $664 Million, 245 beds in private rooms, 10 Stories, 10 Operating Rooms, 18,000 Construction Jobs & 750 Permanent Healthcare Jobs
Article was originally written in 2012 and updated in 2023.