CLEVELAND, Ohio - In less than two weeks, University Hospitals will open the UH Rainbow Center for Women & Children.

At 5805 Euclid Ave., just a few miles west of UH's main campus and UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in University Circle, the new center will start accepting patients July 9. A ribbon cutting for the new facility will be at 3 p.m. Friday, followed by a community block party from 4 to 7 p.m.

UH sees the new center as an opportunity to make health more accessible to patients by offering less-intimidating experiences.

The 40,000-square-foot three-story facility in Midtown will offer both traditional medicine and community services tailored to the needs of the neighborhood.

"We know that neighborhood context and inclusive development is really important to improve health outcomes in our community," said Dr. Aparna Bole, a pediatrician and co-medical director of the new UH Rainbow Center for Women & Children.

UH Rainbow Center for Women & Children will feature pediatric primary care, adolescent medicine, pregnancy and gynecologic medical care, mental and behavioral health services, dieticians and nutrition education, a full-service vision clinic operated by the nonprofit OneSight, dental screening and cleaning, legal services and a WIC office and pharmacy. It will also expand group-care offerings to obesity, nutrition education, postpartum and breastfeeding support and hypertension management.

"I think it is a growing trend in healthcare to really grapple with some of these non-medical determinants of population health. We understand that if we're serious about improving health outcomes, we need to address those," Bole said.

To design the center, UH in 2016 created a Community Advisory Board, made up of about 60 members of the community, including those who live in the neighborhood as well as those working in public health, LBGT health, education, employment and food distribution.

"University Hospitals and members of the community designed the center to help meet the specific needs of this community," UH CEO Tom Zenty said in a prepared statement. "Together, we're not only providing families with convenient access to compassionate medical care, we're integrating resources to truly help enhance their health."

In collocating services, UH wants to reduce the number of stops someone has to make to access care and to attract those who might be intimidated by the main campus. The center is designed with color-coded hallways with Cleveland-specific themes to make wayfinding easier.

"The more stops you have to make to get the care that you need, I think it's more likely that you may miss a step there. It's inconvenient," Bole said.

UH even worked with the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority to establish bus stops on the HealthLine and on Chester Avenue.

"We heard from our community that their needs weren't being met. We needed to change," said Patti DePompei, president of UH Rainbow Babies & Children's and MacDonald Women's hospitals. "We know that health outcomes for people in our contiguous neighborhoods often fall below national standards."

Through this model of care, UH hopes to lower neighborhood infant mortality rates, diabetes and pre-term births, among other things.

In addition to its on-site services, UH Rainbow Center for Women & Children will partner with the new Dave's Market expected to open in 2019 at East 59th Street and Chester Avenue. The supermarket will have a test kitchen where UH dieticians will offer cooking classes to teach residents how to prepare meals and use fresh produce.

"This ethos of thinking about total health is something that we would want to replicate, and we are working on in many centers but it looks different depending on where we are and who our partners are," said Bole.

If You Go

What: Community block party for new UH Rainbow Center for Women & Children

Where: 5805 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio

When: 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, June 29