Children’s Hospital consolidates
Dr. Timothy Fete was working as associate chairman at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis when MU offered him the job of directing its Children’s Hospital.
Fete said the “hook” that helped lure him to Columbia was MU’s decision last fall to expand and consolidate all of its pediatric operations — now housed on two floors of University Hospital and in about a dozen other facilities — and move them to Columbia Regional Hospital. It will be one of 50 free-standing children’s hospitals in the country and the only one in mid-Missouri.
Fete, who started Jan. 1 as the chairman and medical director, said he was intrigued by “the opportunity to help the Children’s Hospital move to a new home that would dramatically increase the recognition of the services provided for mid-Missouri. People will know when they come to Columbia for pediatric service they need to go to just one site.”
Renovations that will cost $12 million began May 28, and the new Children’s Hospital isn’t scheduled to open until next summer. The hospital doesn’t have an official name yet because administrators are seeking a donation big enough for naming rights. But Fete (FATE) said they’re already drawing talented physicians to Columbia as they expand and gear up for the move.
Fete said several physicians have been hired, and about 15 more positions have been approved, including pediatric cardiologists and specialists in endocrinology, genetics and lung disorders. That will increase the number of full-time physician positions from 37 to more than 50.
“We are very, very excited about the potential to grow these divisions so we can provide better care and more immediate access for patients seeking appointments,” Fete said.
The hospital’s location near the intersection of U.S. Highway 63 and Interstate 70 will also provide more convenient access for patients and family members who live outside Columbia.
Having a hospital serving only women and children and separately branding the facility as a children’s hospital “is definitely an advantage,” said Larry McAndrews, president of the National “Right now we’re scattered around the community,” Fete said.
The Children’s Hospital is now located on the sixth and seventh floors of University Hospital. If children need to get X-rays or radiology treatments, for example, they are “mixed in” with adults.
The birthing center and neonatal intensive care unit have been located at Columbia Regional Hospital since 2003. A pediatric surgeon now has to travel across town if he or she is treating a child at one hospital and needed at an emergency involving another patient at the other hospital, Fete said.
Children sometimes have to go to other facilities for psychiatric treatments and physical therapy. Units for pediatric outpatient services are located at the University Physicians Medical Building and the University Physicians-Green Meadows clinic.
At the consolidated Children’s Hospital, “kids will be cared for by individuals of all disciplines who are there because they want to care for children and they have the expertise for caring for children,” Fete said.
The project includes: floor-to-ceiling renovations on Columbia Regional Hospital’s fifth floor, which will house inpatient units with 27 pediatric private rooms and 16 adolescent private rooms, a playroom and a game room; a 13-bed pediatric intensive care unit on the fourth floor; a combined pediatric short-stay unit on the second floor, along with a blood disorder unit and a cancer unit; and a pediatric cardiology clinic on the first floor.
“A child coming into the hospital for admission, or a child going to a pediatric specialty clinic, will walk into a lobby decorated to be child-friendly and greeted by someone trained to work with children,” Fete said.
Once admitted, the family will be escorted to a private room as opposed to the two-bed children’s rooms at University Hospital. The room will be decorated with a “jungle canopy theme” for young children and more muted but similar theme for adolescents.
“The entire environment will be one that is appropriate for children,” Fete said.
Fete said he expects that many rural Missourians who are uncomfortable driving into a city the size of Kansas City, where Children’s Mercy is located, or St. Louis to get their pediatric care will be “much less threatened” driving into Columbia. And they’ll still get a full range of services at Children’s Hospital.
To help cover the cost of the consolidation, which is being done in two phases, the MU Health System this fall stepped up its fundraising efforts.
Laura Gajda, the executive director of advancement for Children’s Hospital, said the system started taking pledges from donors in the spring and formed a hospital advisory board in late July. (The previous advisory board disbanded more than a decade ago.) In October, the campaign went to the general public through forums led by Fete on the consolidation project.
Gajda said the fact that Children’s Hospital is located within University Hospital rather than a free-standing hospital with its own identity made it more challenging to raise money.
But the new hospital is following a national trend. McAndrews said hospitals in the U.S. are consolidating pediatric services into regional facilities, usually those affiliated with universities. At the same time, the number of pediatric patients treated at hospitals, usually less than a quarter of the total number of patients, has declined steadily in the past 20 years, he said. There are now 175 children’s hospitals in the country. “If (hospitals) are going to provide the same depth and breadth of service, they need to reach out to a larger geographic area,” McAndrews said.
The new Children’s Hospital
Workers are six months into the renovation of Columbia Regional Hospital to accommodate the consolidation of the area’s pediatric care in a single location. The project is scheduled to be finished in less than nine months. Here’s a diagram showing where units will be located within the five floors of the hospital and the adjacent Keene Medical Building.
Who’s doing the Phase 1 work?
Sircal Contracting Inc. is the contractor for renovations of the fifth floor, which will house inpatient units with 43 private beds. MU is bidding out renovations of other floors.
Simon Oswald is the architect.
KJWW is the mechanical and electrical contractor.
Children’s Hospital naming opportunities
Children’s Hospital: $25 million
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit,Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: $5 million
Pediatric Nursing Unit, Adolescent Nursing Unit, Short Stay Center, Lobby Registration Center: $1 million
Cystic Fibrosis Program, Asthma Program, Diabetes Center, Cancer Unit, Cardiology Center: $500,000
Children’s Pharmacy: $200,000
Pediatric Playroom: $330,000
Resident Quarters: $75,000
Procedure Rooms: $50,000
Patient Rooms: $10,000
Children’s Hospital Advisory Board
MU created the Children’s Hospital Advisory Board in July. Its mission is to support and promote community awareness of mid-Missouri’s largest pediatric health care center. Serving three-year terms are:
- Whit Babcock, assistant director of MU Athletics,
- Susan Gray, founder of Isabel’s Country Mustard
- Mary Jo Henry, director of marketing for Machens Auto Group,
- Carla Leible, general manager of Zimmer Radio,
- Steve Maloney, district manager of Walmart,
- Margaret McDermott, Missouri Credit Union vice president,
- Joe Moseley, Shelter Insurance vice president,
- Doris Ross, community volunteer,
- Jon Van Ness, president and CEO, KRCG-TV.
There also are five non-voting ex-officio members who are executives of MU Health Care, Children’s Hospital and Columbia Regional Hospital.