The New Karolinska Solna 2016

The challenge for the New Karolinska Solna University Hospital, which opens for the first patients in 2016, is to offer highly specialized and specialized medical care and to carry out research and educational training on a significant scale and at highest quality. The new Karolinska University Hospital will be a center in the Stockholm region's renewed medical care system and will contribute to the effective collaboration with other hospitals and healthcare providers in the region.

An important key term in planning the New Karolinska Solna's activities is ”patient first", which means being able to provide right care to the right patient at the right time. The NKS is being created to provide more patient-centered care, where patient safety, privacy and comfort come first.

A very important task is to strengthen collaboration between medical care, clinical research, basic research and training (at the Karolinska Institute) to better contribute to the development of medical care so that new research can be more rapidly transformed into new methods and medicine.

The new Karolinska Solna is of utmost importance in the realization of the vision of making the Stockholm region the world's leading region in life sciences. Basic research and clinical research in the NKS will be world class.

The new University hospital will have:

• Clear focus on the patient’s safety and integrity
• Secure single rooms to reduce the risk of spreading infection
• Efficient and process-oriented approach, to minimize having to move the patient, for example
• Good collaboration and logistics between the different units 
• Care which is organized under medical themes
• Increased proximity of care, research and training that will enhance advances in healthcare
• Appropriate environment that stimulates the healing process
• Stimulating environment for staff, researchers and students
• An energy-efficient and sustainable hospital
• A University hospital in the city, close to residents

Patients at the New Karolinska Solna will be investigated and treated without waiting times and setup times. The goal is that most of the investigations and decisions about treatment should be done on the same day.

The NKS is also an important investment in terms of health economics. A new cutting-edge facility represents a significant investment (14.5 billion SEK) but the alternative would mean many years of rebuilding and renovations, which would cost as much but give rise to a significantly worse hospital with greater disruption to the ongoing hospital activities.