Texas Children's Hospital in Houston has provided healthcare services to children and their families since 1954.

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Since Texas Children’s Hospital opened its doors in May 1953, it has grown from a modest three-story, 106-bed hospital to one of the nation’s top-five pediatric medical centers, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. Today, the facility is licensed for 715 beds, and has become the nation’s largest pediatric hospital.
  

Texas Children’s Hospital has provided comprehensive healthcare services to more than 1 million children since 1954. “Our commitment to children reaches around the globe to families from more than 50 countries who bring their children here for treatment,” the hospital says.
  

Throughout its history, Texas Children’s Hospital has made major medical breakthroughs in a number of diseases and conditions, including cancer, diabetes, asthma, HIV, premature babies, and cardiogenic and attention-related disorders. The hospital’s medical staff consists of more than 1,580 board-certified primary care physicians, pediatric subspecialists, pediatric surgical subspecialists and dentists, along with a dedicated, highly skilled nursing and support staff.
    
Community Outreach
In addition, the hospital operates a number of medical centers throughout the Houston metropolitan area as a part of its Texas Children’s Hospital Integrated Delivery System. “The system’s mission is to support excellence in patient care, education and research with a commitment to quality service and cost-effective care to enhance the health and well-being of children locally, nationally and internationally,” the hospital states.

This system allows the hospital to provide a number of nonemergency care services to families throughout the region. “Specifically trained to treat children and adolescents, the staff at these facilities often provide a critical link between nonemergency care and the hospital,” Texas Children’s Hospital says.

“Texas Children’s Hospital is not just a component of the integrated delivery system. It also is the guiding force of the system. It is the vision, expertise and resources of the hospital that guide the operations and continued development of the entire integrated delivery system.”

Vision 2010: Excellence to Eminence
Although the hospital has already gained a reputation for excellence in pediatric medicine, it developed a comprehensive program to ensure it can maintain momentum well into the future. The project includes the expansion of the Feigin Center for Pediatric Research, the development of the maternity center  and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute.

Director of Facilities, Planning and Development Jill Pearsall says the program was developed in 2005. “The teams involved looked into areas of strategic initiatives, demographic assumptions, externalities, innovations, space and financial drivers, stakeholder validation, facility master-planning and strategic financial planning,” she says. “The results of these efforts became the Vision 2010 program.”

Funding Future Research
The Feigin Center for Pediatric Research was the first aspect of Vision 2010 to commence construction. The $120 million vertical expansion will include eight additional floors for a total of 222,000 square feet above the existing 12-story structure.

“The Feigin Center expansion will augment Texas Children’s Hospital’s efforts to provide teaching and training for the next generation of health professionals,” the hospital states. “With more than $90 million in extramural grant support, most of which came from the National Institutes of Health, the Feigin Center is a premier institution of learning and research.”

In addition, the expansion will provide space for two floors of open-concept genetic laboratory space, three floors of additional research projects and administrative offices.     The Feigin Center is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2008, Pearsall adds.

Maternity Center Development
As part of its Vision 2010: Excellence to Eminence campaign, Texas Children’s Hospital is expanding into perinatal services through the creation of the Texas Children’s Maternity Center.

Texas Children’s Maternity Center will feature 15 stories for a total of 720,000 square feet and 102 beds. With an expected completion date in mid-2011, the hospital expects the facility to perform more than 5,000 births annually, with a focus on high-risk deliveries.

Neurological Research Institute
The Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute will be a new model of excellence as the first dedicated facility in the United States to use a multidisciplinary research approach to understand the unique issues of a child’s brain structure, development patterns and related diseases.

The facility is set for completion in 2010, and will feature 14 floors and 370,000 square feet of space.

“This will be the first facility of its kind in the United States that will use a multidisciplinary approach and will be dedicated to understanding the unique issues of a child’s brain structure, development patterns and related diseases,” the hospital states.
    
A Collaborative Effort
According to Pearsall, each segment of the expansion had full input from the departments and staff members affected by the construction.

“Each building project has a steering committee as well as multiple work groups that are comprised of leadership, staff and physicians that bring their professional expertise to the table,” she explains. “As many staff members are on the various work groups, not only do we garner their valuable input to the facility design, but we also have consistency across our existing operations and all of the new facilities, due to their participation."