On December 1st, Orange County's first cancer specialty hospital opened in Irvine. The 174,000-square-foot City of Hope medical facility is located at 16300 Sand Canyon Parkway.

More than 100 physician-scientists have been brought in to focus solely on treating and curing cancer. The 73-bed hospital provides access to a number of cancer-focused clinical trials, including early-stage clinical trials that require close supervision in a hospital setting.

The first floor includes an eight-bed evaluation and treatment center — essentially an urgent care that will be open around-the-clock, 365 days a year, for patients who have any issue related to their cancer.

The new hospital is part of a 72-acre academic research campus that connects the hospital to an adjacent outpatient center, which opened last year, at City of Hope’s $1 billion Irvine campus being developed at Barranca and Alton.