Blank Children’s Hospital’s expanded Emergency Department opens Tuesday
Young patients and their families will have access to a new state-of-the-art emergency department beginning Tuesday at Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines.
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Dr. Amy Groen |
On Dec. 13, the recently completed Variety Pediatric Emergency Department opens to the public. The new, larger emergency department is part of a multiphase $72 million expansion and renovation of the emergency departments at Iowa Methodist Medical Center/Blank Children’s Hospital. The department is named for Variety — the Children’s Charity, which last week announced it had committed $800,000 to the project.
Blank Children’s Hospital operates the busiest pediatric emergency department in the state, with more than 24,000 visits expected this year, said Dr. Amy Groen, a pediatric emergency medicine physician and the emergency department’s medical director since September.
“We have been used to working with 11 (treatment) rooms; now in our main (pediatric) emergency department we will have 12 rooms plus six Express Care rooms,” Groen said. “So we’re almost doubling what we’ve had — it’s a big change for us.” The six new rooms are part of 10 Express Care rooms that have been added between the pediatric and adult emergency departments.
The new Express Care rooms will enable patients with less-severe conditions to be seen more quickly in dedicated rooms, which will reduce waiting times, she said.
Among other features of the newly constructed pediatric space are a specialized exam room for sexual assault victims, a CT scanner within the department so that patients don’t have to be transported as far, and enhanced security measures for patients and their families.
With the opening of the new department, additional nursing staff is being added to an already expanded emergency department staff, Groen said. Also, the department has added a physician who will staff the Express Care rooms during busy times. “We’re also doubling our Child Life presence in the Emergency Department, and we’re actually going to staff a social worker in our department, which is new,” she said.
The project was preceded by a renovation and expansion of the adult emergency department at Iowa Methodist, which opened in June as the William C. Knapp Emergency Department and Trauma Center. The hospital also completed a remodel and expansion of its Critical Care Unit in 2015.
As a next phase of the renovation project, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Blank Children’s will be moved and expanded so that it’s located on the second floor, directly above the Pediatric Emergency Department. The Endoscopy Center will also be moved to the hospital from the John C. Stoddard Cancer Center. Those projects are expected to be completed by late 2017.
To read a Business Record story that provided an overview of UnityPoint Health-Des Moines’ renovation projects, click here.
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