Campus Renewal is a long-term project to transform the medical center through new construction and renovations, creating an environment and experience for patients and their families that matches the excellence in medical care they expect.
Joining the show to discuss the exciting hospital campus expansion at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and how it will impact our referring physicians and the community, is F. Sessions Cole, MD. He is the director of newborn medicine and Chief Medical officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Learn more about campus renewal at http://www.bjcconstruction.org
Selected Podcast
Navigating the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Campus Expansion
Featured Speaker:
Learn more about F. Sessions Cole, MD
F. Sessions Cole, MD
F. Sessions Cole, MD sees newborn patients while they are in the St. Louis Children's Hospital neonatal intensive care unit. Dr. Cole is consistently recognized in "The Best Doctors in America" list.Learn more about F. Sessions Cole, MD
Transcription:
Melanie Cole (Host): Campus Renewal is a long-term project to transform the medical center through new construction and renovations; creating an environment and experience for patients and their families that matches the excellence in medical care they expect. Here to tell us about this exciting project, is Dr. F. Sessions Cole, he’s a Washington University physician, Director of Newborn Medicine and Chief Medical Officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Welcome to the show Dr. Cole. So, tell us a little bit about the Campus Renewal project.
Dr. F. Sessions Cole, MD (Guest): The Campus Renewal project is an important project for patients and families, for hospital staff and for the Washington University Physicians and private physicians who use Barnes Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital. It has been in the works for at least five years. It represents a major investment on the part of BJC Healthcare and it will effectively propel the level of care at both hospitals into the future by integrating best facility design for patient outcome with innovative strategies to improve patient outcomes from a nursing and medical standpoint.
Melanie: Dr. Cole, why did BJC embark on this project in the first place?
Dr. Cole: BJC Healthcare embarked on this project because it recognized that the importance to our community, the importance to our mission and the importance to sustainability for both Washington University School of Medicine and for BJC Healthcare; are all rely upon being cutting edge and state of the art. In our region, we are really the go-to-people, in terms of state of the art and innovative care both for common problems in adults and children and for very different and undiagnosed problems in adults and children. And the importance of having this kind of an facility for our community, for our patients, for our staff and for our physicians couldn’t be higher. So, I’m just very thrilled that we are very close to seeing this important set of mission goals fulfilled.
Melanie: So, what exactly is being built or renovated from a St. Louis Children’s Hospital perspective? What will the new construction include?
Dr. Cole: The new construction at St. Louis Children’s Hospital includes a 12-story tower addition to Children’s Hospital which has been constructed immediately next to Children’s Hospital old building and is on the site of the former Barnes Jewish Hospital School of Nursing. The construction allows an expansion of every floor at Children’s Hospital. The construction therefore permits more beds, about 100 more beds total to be added to the hospital and also the construction allows for us to have single patients in individual rooms, most of the time at Children’s Hospital. That single room, single patient approach will be different from what we have had for the last 30 years or so, where we have had to do two or more patients in the same room. The privacy and the infection control advantages will be terrific, and we are really looking forward to having this single room single patient approach with the expansion of the new tower.
Melanie: So, what about diagnostics and outpatient clinic space?
Dr. Cole: The outpatient and clinic space will also be expanded at St. Louis Children’s Hospital on the lower floors. This space will permit us greater flexibility around what we do in the ambulatory area and increase clinic space for what are our very busy clinics where there is considerable demand for the medical center Children’s Hospital based services.
Melanie: And Dr. Cole, how does this expansion benefit or affect patient care, and how does it affect the way the staff is able to take care of your patients?
Dr. Cole: The expansion affects patient care first of all because each of the patients will now be likely to have her or his own room, with all of the sort of - all of the advantages of having a single patient in a room with respect to infection control, privacy, and confidentiality. The staff have a terrific opportunity now in the expanded space to have better access to their patients. We have a number of new strategies for monitoring patients and for keeping track of patients and this will make our care both higher tech and higher touch; that is to say, we will have greater opportunity to take better care of our patients with this new facility.
Melanie: So, what about work stations for the staff and even elevators and a helipad and these types of things because these are amazing benefits to both the staff and the patients?
Dr. Cole: The new tower has been designed in a way that really optimizes all of our staff efficiencies including having new state of the art work stations. We have tremendous new elevator transport opportunities so that we can keep the patients in one area and visitors in another area on the elevators and we have a brand-new helipad which will permit us to take patients who are air transferred in by helicopter directly from the helipad to one or the other of the intensive care units in the hospital. So, all of these upgrades will be great benefits for patient care, will be great benefits for the staff and will be basically, helping us continue to improve the outcomes of our patients.
Melanie: We all know, Dr. Cole, that parents worry so much when their child is in the hospital how does all of this benefit the family members and the parents? What will they notice as a difference to help their children?
Dr. Cole: Parents and families will certainly I think notice the advantages of being in a single room and having the privacy and confidentiality that are part of being in a single room. In addition, the new space, the new tower, has been designed in an effort to bring in Forest Park, into the patient’s rooms and so there will be a new feeling of being in a different kind of patient room in the new tower. And finally, I think the families will appreciate the increased availability and efficiency of the staff that are all embedded in the design of the new tower.
Melanie: Speak a little bit about the Women and Infants Program and how the new configuration impacts mom and baby.
Dr. Cole: The Women and Infant’s Program is another exciting part of the campus renovation project. Historically, pregnant women have come to the fifth floor at Barnes Hospital South and have delivered their babies and the babies then have been – who have needed intensive care have been transferred across a short bridge to the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. With the new north tower’s construction, the delivery service and all of the ancillary parts of the delivery service will be moved to a location in the north tower which is much, much closer to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Therefore, moms and dads and families will have much easier access to the babies who require intensive care. They will also have a terrific new birthing facility and they will have a great space just above in the normal nursery at Barnes Jewish Hospital north tower where they will be able to take care of their normal babies. So, this new configuration, really addresses increase integration between moms who are delivering and babies who require intensive care.
Melanie: When will the new buildings open? When the expansion is finished, and the relocated portions of the existing hospital space be operational, when will that happen?
Dr. Cole: We are planning on moving babies who are currently hospitalized at Barnes Jewish Hospital over to Children’s Hospital between the 9th and the 11th of February 2018 and the delivery service at Barnes Jewish Hospital will move across to the new north tower on the 10th of February 2018. So, by the end of that weekend, the 9th to the 11th of February, all of the delivery services and the babies will be moved from Barnes Hospital south into Barnes Hospital north and the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Melanie: Dr. Cole, how do you feel these changes affect referring physicians?
Dr. Cole: Referring physicians will have a terrific set of facilities in which to work, especially for pediatricians. They will have great access to the babies who are normal, whom they are caring for and they’ll also have easy access to come across the bridge, short bridge from the north tower to the neonatal intensive care unit and see babies whom they know and who are being cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit. It really is going to be a great efficiency promoter for our referring pediatric providers and I think that the new space they will very much enjoy as being state of the art.
Melanie: So, wrap it up for us with what you would like other physicians to know about the expansion project, your guiding principles, pretty much how exciting this project is and what you want the public to know about it.
Dr. Cole: I’m very excited about the importance of this new facility at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and at Barnes Jewish Hospital. The children’s hospital expansion will mean for our community great new innovative inpatient resources for children in our community and from all of our referring areas. The new Women and Infants Program with the relocation of the delivery service into the Barnes Jewish Hospital north tower and now the much shorter distance between the delivery service and the neonatal intensive care unit will mean much greater integration of those two important services and will be a great advantage to our referring physicians in terms of their ability to see both normal babies upstairs and babies in the neonatal intensive care unit and for our community, I think that the women and infant service at St. Louis Children’s Hospital’s new facility will really be a beacon which emphasizes the importance of child health, of pregnancy and of the importance of the birthing process for our community. Children are the most important investment we can make in our community and pregnant women are a critical part of that investment. So, we are just thrilled and pleased and are really looking forward to having our entire community; referring physicians, families, grandparents, children come and see and use our new terrific state of the art Children’s Hospital and Women and infants Program.
Melanie: Thank you so much Dr. Cole for being with us today and what an exciting project. A physician can refer a patient by calling Children’s direct physician access line at 1-800-678-HELP. That’s 1-800-678-4357. You’re listening to Radio Rounds with St. Louis Children’s Hospital. For more information on resources available at St. Louis Children’s Hospital you can go to www.stlouischildren.org . That’s www.stlouischildrens.org . This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Melanie Cole (Host): Campus Renewal is a long-term project to transform the medical center through new construction and renovations; creating an environment and experience for patients and their families that matches the excellence in medical care they expect. Here to tell us about this exciting project, is Dr. F. Sessions Cole, he’s a Washington University physician, Director of Newborn Medicine and Chief Medical Officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Welcome to the show Dr. Cole. So, tell us a little bit about the Campus Renewal project.
Dr. F. Sessions Cole, MD (Guest): The Campus Renewal project is an important project for patients and families, for hospital staff and for the Washington University Physicians and private physicians who use Barnes Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital. It has been in the works for at least five years. It represents a major investment on the part of BJC Healthcare and it will effectively propel the level of care at both hospitals into the future by integrating best facility design for patient outcome with innovative strategies to improve patient outcomes from a nursing and medical standpoint.
Melanie: Dr. Cole, why did BJC embark on this project in the first place?
Dr. Cole: BJC Healthcare embarked on this project because it recognized that the importance to our community, the importance to our mission and the importance to sustainability for both Washington University School of Medicine and for BJC Healthcare; are all rely upon being cutting edge and state of the art. In our region, we are really the go-to-people, in terms of state of the art and innovative care both for common problems in adults and children and for very different and undiagnosed problems in adults and children. And the importance of having this kind of an facility for our community, for our patients, for our staff and for our physicians couldn’t be higher. So, I’m just very thrilled that we are very close to seeing this important set of mission goals fulfilled.
Melanie: So, what exactly is being built or renovated from a St. Louis Children’s Hospital perspective? What will the new construction include?
Dr. Cole: The new construction at St. Louis Children’s Hospital includes a 12-story tower addition to Children’s Hospital which has been constructed immediately next to Children’s Hospital old building and is on the site of the former Barnes Jewish Hospital School of Nursing. The construction allows an expansion of every floor at Children’s Hospital. The construction therefore permits more beds, about 100 more beds total to be added to the hospital and also the construction allows for us to have single patients in individual rooms, most of the time at Children’s Hospital. That single room, single patient approach will be different from what we have had for the last 30 years or so, where we have had to do two or more patients in the same room. The privacy and the infection control advantages will be terrific, and we are really looking forward to having this single room single patient approach with the expansion of the new tower.
Melanie: So, what about diagnostics and outpatient clinic space?
Dr. Cole: The outpatient and clinic space will also be expanded at St. Louis Children’s Hospital on the lower floors. This space will permit us greater flexibility around what we do in the ambulatory area and increase clinic space for what are our very busy clinics where there is considerable demand for the medical center Children’s Hospital based services.
Melanie: And Dr. Cole, how does this expansion benefit or affect patient care, and how does it affect the way the staff is able to take care of your patients?
Dr. Cole: The expansion affects patient care first of all because each of the patients will now be likely to have her or his own room, with all of the sort of - all of the advantages of having a single patient in a room with respect to infection control, privacy, and confidentiality. The staff have a terrific opportunity now in the expanded space to have better access to their patients. We have a number of new strategies for monitoring patients and for keeping track of patients and this will make our care both higher tech and higher touch; that is to say, we will have greater opportunity to take better care of our patients with this new facility.
Melanie: So, what about work stations for the staff and even elevators and a helipad and these types of things because these are amazing benefits to both the staff and the patients?
Dr. Cole: The new tower has been designed in a way that really optimizes all of our staff efficiencies including having new state of the art work stations. We have tremendous new elevator transport opportunities so that we can keep the patients in one area and visitors in another area on the elevators and we have a brand-new helipad which will permit us to take patients who are air transferred in by helicopter directly from the helipad to one or the other of the intensive care units in the hospital. So, all of these upgrades will be great benefits for patient care, will be great benefits for the staff and will be basically, helping us continue to improve the outcomes of our patients.
Melanie: We all know, Dr. Cole, that parents worry so much when their child is in the hospital how does all of this benefit the family members and the parents? What will they notice as a difference to help their children?
Dr. Cole: Parents and families will certainly I think notice the advantages of being in a single room and having the privacy and confidentiality that are part of being in a single room. In addition, the new space, the new tower, has been designed in an effort to bring in Forest Park, into the patient’s rooms and so there will be a new feeling of being in a different kind of patient room in the new tower. And finally, I think the families will appreciate the increased availability and efficiency of the staff that are all embedded in the design of the new tower.
Melanie: Speak a little bit about the Women and Infants Program and how the new configuration impacts mom and baby.
Dr. Cole: The Women and Infant’s Program is another exciting part of the campus renovation project. Historically, pregnant women have come to the fifth floor at Barnes Hospital South and have delivered their babies and the babies then have been – who have needed intensive care have been transferred across a short bridge to the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. With the new north tower’s construction, the delivery service and all of the ancillary parts of the delivery service will be moved to a location in the north tower which is much, much closer to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Therefore, moms and dads and families will have much easier access to the babies who require intensive care. They will also have a terrific new birthing facility and they will have a great space just above in the normal nursery at Barnes Jewish Hospital north tower where they will be able to take care of their normal babies. So, this new configuration, really addresses increase integration between moms who are delivering and babies who require intensive care.
Melanie: When will the new buildings open? When the expansion is finished, and the relocated portions of the existing hospital space be operational, when will that happen?
Dr. Cole: We are planning on moving babies who are currently hospitalized at Barnes Jewish Hospital over to Children’s Hospital between the 9th and the 11th of February 2018 and the delivery service at Barnes Jewish Hospital will move across to the new north tower on the 10th of February 2018. So, by the end of that weekend, the 9th to the 11th of February, all of the delivery services and the babies will be moved from Barnes Hospital south into Barnes Hospital north and the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Melanie: Dr. Cole, how do you feel these changes affect referring physicians?
Dr. Cole: Referring physicians will have a terrific set of facilities in which to work, especially for pediatricians. They will have great access to the babies who are normal, whom they are caring for and they’ll also have easy access to come across the bridge, short bridge from the north tower to the neonatal intensive care unit and see babies whom they know and who are being cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit. It really is going to be a great efficiency promoter for our referring pediatric providers and I think that the new space they will very much enjoy as being state of the art.
Melanie: So, wrap it up for us with what you would like other physicians to know about the expansion project, your guiding principles, pretty much how exciting this project is and what you want the public to know about it.
Dr. Cole: I’m very excited about the importance of this new facility at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and at Barnes Jewish Hospital. The children’s hospital expansion will mean for our community great new innovative inpatient resources for children in our community and from all of our referring areas. The new Women and Infants Program with the relocation of the delivery service into the Barnes Jewish Hospital north tower and now the much shorter distance between the delivery service and the neonatal intensive care unit will mean much greater integration of those two important services and will be a great advantage to our referring physicians in terms of their ability to see both normal babies upstairs and babies in the neonatal intensive care unit and for our community, I think that the women and infant service at St. Louis Children’s Hospital’s new facility will really be a beacon which emphasizes the importance of child health, of pregnancy and of the importance of the birthing process for our community. Children are the most important investment we can make in our community and pregnant women are a critical part of that investment. So, we are just thrilled and pleased and are really looking forward to having our entire community; referring physicians, families, grandparents, children come and see and use our new terrific state of the art Children’s Hospital and Women and infants Program.
Melanie: Thank you so much Dr. Cole for being with us today and what an exciting project. A physician can refer a patient by calling Children’s direct physician access line at 1-800-678-HELP. That’s 1-800-678-4357. You’re listening to Radio Rounds with St. Louis Children’s Hospital. For more information on resources available at St. Louis Children’s Hospital you can go to www.stlouischildren.org . That’s www.stlouischildrens.org . This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.