The inpatient capacity of Nemours Children’s Hospital expanded by 30 beds for $29 million, beginning last month.
The hospital expansion will include a new operating room, catheterization lab, and provide care for cardiac and noncardiac patients, according to a Nemours press release.
The 100-bed and 630,000-square-foot hospital just celebrated seven years, and with the expansion, Nemours will add 40,000 square feet to the building.
“The additional working space allows Nemours to add critical care-capable beds and enable the hospital to handle more cardiac and other critical-care patients,” said Randy Hartley, Nemours’ chief operating officer.
Families, doctors and hospital staff collaborated over many months to plan the expansion with the advice of the Nemours Family Advisory Council. This council consists of parents to children being treated at Nemours who weigh in on who the hospital hires, advise and implement policies and services, and advocate for the needs of families in Nemours’ care.
“When families are on the sixth floor, they will find a space that was designed with input of families who are sensitive to their needs from [the] experience [of] having loved ones in the hospital,” said Tanielle Randall, co-chair of the Family Advisory Committee.
The new expansion, which can be found on the sixth floor, treated its first patient in December. The cardiac operating room and catheterization laboratory were scheduled to open in January, while another section of this laboratory was scheduled to be available in late January.
The expansion will help alleviate the growing pediatric demand in Orlando.
In addition to a growing demand for high-quality care, Nemours also runs the world’s most visited website for health information for kids and teens, kidshealth.org, according to a press release.
Kidshealth.org has separate sections for parents, kids, and teens’ information, as well as doctor-reviewed advice, health articles, videos, and tools, and lesson plans for early childhood educators.
Photos Courtesy of Nemours
