The Penn State Board of Trustees approved final plans last week for the new Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital to be built on the campus of Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa.
The planned 252,000-square-foot, five-story Children’s Hospital will include five operating rooms designed for surgical care of children and adolescents, an eight-bed surgical recovery area, a cardiac catheterization lab for pediatric heart patients and a significantly expanded space for pediatric intensive care — vital infrastructure to support the role of Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital as the region’s only Level One Pediatric Trauma Center. Additionally, it will include private pediatric and adolescent patient rooms, and a new pediatric radiology unit. It also features educational resource centers for families to learn about childhood illnesses, health and wellness, including a “safety store.”
An outpatient pediatric cancer pavilion on the first floor includes 11 infusion rooms and eight exam rooms to support bone marrow transplantation and other therapies vital to treating children with cancer. An 18-bed inpatient unit for hematology/oncology patients will be on the third floor.
The current Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, which primarily occupies the Medical Center’s seventh floor, is classified by the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions as a “hospital within a hospital.” While the care provided within the current facility has earned national recognition, the facilities were originally designed for adult patients rather than children and families. For example, many of the existing patient rooms do not accommodate parents who wish to stay overnight with their children.
“For years our dedicated physicians, nurses and staff have provided excellent medical care in facilities that are less than optimal,” Harold L. Paz, MD, the Medical Center’s CEO, Penn State’s senior vice president for health affairs and dean of Penn State College of Medicine, said in the release. “This thoughtfully designed Children’s Hospital provides our outstanding caregivers with a state-of-the-art facility to match the highly specialized, quality care they deliver. It offers amenities that truly meet the needs of today’s patients and families.”
In addition to critical patient care areas, several elements planned throughout the new Children’s Hospital will provide children and families with a distraction from their worries about illness or injury. These elements include a meditation room, an outdoor roof terrace with green plants and an interactive learning wall on the hospital’s first floor.
Payette and Associates, the Boston-based architectural firm that designed the new Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute facility, created the designs for the new Children’s Hospital, which is estimated at nearly $207 million. The Medical Center plans to seek LEED certification for the Children’s Hospital, recognition of its environmentally friendly design.
Read the Penn State Hershey release on Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.
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