Golisano Children’s Hospital Breaks Ground, Launches Partnership
SOUTH FORT MYERS, Fla. — Community leaders gathered Tuesday to break ground on the $242 million Golisano Children’s Hospital. The Fort Myers office of Harvard Jolly Architecture in partnership with Houston-based FKP Architects designed the 128-bed hospital, which is expected to be completed in 2017.
The children’s hospital will consolidate the medical and ancillary specialty services into one location to treat critically ill or injured children in the five-county region. The nearly 300,000-square-foot, eight-story facility will be located at HealthPark Florida, a 400-acre medical campus. The campus is anchored by HealthPark Medical Center, home to the current Golisano Children’s Hospital and part of Lee Memorial Health System. A major reason for the new facility is the increase of admissions between 2004 and 2010 at the current children’s hospital at Lee Memorial Health System.
Planning of the design concept started in September 2012 as FKP met with Lee Memorial Health System staff to understand the goals of the project. According to FKP, three main goals were initiated to establish the hospital as the area’s leading pediatric health care facility; empower patients and their families and caregivers with inspirations, hope and healing; and provide a welcoming facility that is integrated with the Gulf Coast environment, adaptive to technology and flexible for evolving health care delivery. The flexible design of the hospital also allows the beds to expand from 128 up to 160.
The design incorporates the local area by using curved architectural accents that mimic the waves of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as features extensive glass to showcase the building’s natural surroundings. The interiors are designed with warm colors reflective of the sun, surf and sand.
The funding of the project has required great community effort. The hospital’s funding campaign has received $82 million of its $100 million goal.
New Partnership
As part of the groundbreaking, the Golisano Children’s Hospital partnered with the Miami Children’s Hospital in order to provide streamlined services to children that may need to transfer to Miami.
“We look forward to working more closely with Miami Children’s Hospital and building a relationship that will provide a comprehensive network of care for our patients,” Kathy Bridge-Liles, chief administrative officer of Golisano, said in a statement.
The partnership will allow children with more specialized needs to transfer directly to Miami Children’s Hospital through the hospital’s LifeFlight critical care program, which includes ground and air transportation that is staffed with a pediatric care team, and return to Golisano Children’s Hospital once stabilized. Both hospitals will use the same telehealth system to ensure that the hospitals can easily consult with one another.
“Telehealth services will enable our doctors to consult with specialists in Miami as if they are with us in the same room,” said Dr. Emad Salman, medical director of Golisano, in a statement. “In the past, all children with head injuries were transferred to Miami or Tampa/St. Petersburg, but through the use of telehealth services, the Miami neurosurgeons now have access to our patients’ MRI images and can evaluate them to determine if they need to be transferred for specialized care.”
With the partnership, Golisano will be able to offer access advanced specialty care such as pediatric neurosurgery and cardiac surgery.