Joint FIU-Baptist Health clinical site on track for 2028 use

Written by Kelly Sanchez on February 25, 2026

Development of a joint clinical site on the campus of Florida International University as part of its partnership with Baptist Health is on track to be completed in 2028.

It’s “progressing extremely well,” said Dr. Osmel Delgado, CEO of FIU Health, the university’s clinical practice, and the associate dean for clinical affairs.

“Obviously it’s hard to predict unforeseen things that we don’t know of, but for the time being now, everything’s going as planned,” Dr. Delgado said. “We had plans for the facility coming online in 2028. Around quarter one of 2028 is the plan for that right now.”

In a November 2023 news release, Baptist Health and FIU announced they would be joining forces and said the partnership aimed to elevate patient care, address the nation’s physician shortage and boost medical research in South Florida.

Before the affiliation, Baptist Health and the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine collaborated for more than a decade to offer clinical rotations to medical students and an accredited medical residency program at Baptist Health West Kendall Baptist Hospital.

“We entered into an affiliation together, both organizations, to really kind of collaborate and further the support of the academic medical mission and also kind of leveraging Baptist’s incredible clinical infrastructure and what they’ve been able to accomplish over the years as a clinical entity,” Dr. Delgado said.

“We feel like the strength of FIU, focusing on the medical education side, both undergraduate and graduate medical education, as well as Baptist’s forte with clinical excellence in the delivery of care, combining those efforts [is] what allows to become coming as one,” he said, “and I think in doing so we are able to kind of, what I would call open up new opportunities now in this affiliation overall.”

Dr. Delgado added that the alliance will help apply FIU’s research in real-world clinical settings.

“One of them is going to include in the collaboration for looking at where FIU has focused historically predominantly on basic science research excellence, and it’s one of our grand university’s strategic goals overall is to continue to push our research development and discovery as a university and how that then ultimately, with a clinical affiliate partner like Baptist, how that translates ultimately to the bedside,” he said.

“We could certainly focus on discovery and research, and then how that ultimately gets to be put into place for the benefit of patient care on the delivery side aspect,” he said. “I think those are all fabulous components that are tied to us kind of coming together as one in one kind of transformative affiliation and alliance.”