Features of the New Hospital

Construction on The Children’s Hospital at Saint Francis is underway and completion is expected in late 2007.

The Children’s Hospital at Saint Francis will be a facility designed around the needs of patients and their families. As such, rooms have been designed to be large enough to accommodate both the patient and his or her parents. Click on the renderings below to see more features of The Children's Hospital at Saint Francis.

The new 104-bed children’s hospital is being constructed on the north side of the existing Saint Francis Hospital. There will be eight floors in the building, six of which will be opened immediately upon completion and two remaining floors available for expansion.

The facility will provide greater medical/surgical capabilities, pediatric intensive care services, as well as outpatient and inpatient infusion therapies for children. The new Children’s Hospital will continue to have access to surgical services, Trauma Emergency Center and other services provided by Saint Francis Hospital.

In order to create the most advanced, patient and family-centered environment, staff from The Children’s Hospital at Saint Francis made several site visits to children’s hospitals around the country to collect information and ideas for a creative and functional internal design. Specific attention has been given to each hospital’s focus on family needs and ways to make each family member as comfortable as possible.

In order to gain additional ideas for “family centered” care at The Children’s Hospital at Saint Francis, focus groups were asked to give their opinions about what they would like to see in the new facility. Groups included The Children’s Hospital staff, family advisory council members, parents, children aged 5 to 11 and teens. Discussion topics in the focus groups included the décor of the new hospital, the layout of patient rooms, the types of food to be offered, the design of the playroom and the design of the library and teen common room. Other topics included extending coffee shop hours, access to a copier, elevator size and convenience, cleanliness of the family kitchen, a way to dim lights, security, showers/bathrooms and items to be available in vending machines.