Phoenix Children’s Hospital opens new trauma center in downtown Phoenix

The Phoenix Children’s Hospital is set to open its new trauma center on Sept.20, a $40 million expansion large enough for 100,000 patients.

“It’s a huge improvement for us,” said Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s Critical Care Services Vice President Kathleen Moore. “Everyone wants to facilitate the best care to the children of Arizona.”

The new facility has six drop-off areas for ambulances, separate hallways for patients and visitors and a streamlined process for patients to get from the entrance to the trauma room.

Transcript:

PKG: Phoenix children's hospital will open a new emergency department later this month.

John McGreevy: This is a great thing for our hospital and our community; this will give us an opportunity to continue to care for the sickest children in Arizona and to take care of more children at the same time.

PKG: Plans for the new emergency department or ed have been ongoing for the past five years. The hospital raised $40 million for the project in 2015 and more space is the most crucial improvement.

Dave Cottle: 63 exam rooms, three trauma rooms.

PKG: The old emergency department was built to treat about 30,000 patients, which wasn't enough for the 80,000 patients who actually came through.

Dave Cottle: When we have backup in our current ed over there, people leave. So it's not serving the community, and we want all the kiddos to come here and be served and that's our main focus.

PKG: With the new addition 80 to 100,000 kids a year will be able to come through the only level one pediatric trauma center in Arizona, just in time to accommodate the state's growing child population.

John McGreevy: We're looking at probably adding another 500,000 to a million children over the next five to six years, so those are children that need to be seen and need to have healthcare.

Ted Simons: Again, with that story, this will be the only level one pediatric unit in the state and one of the few in the country, and for more, we welcome Kathleen Moore, vice president of critical care services at PCH. Good to have you here. Congratulations on this. Open tomorrow?

Kathleen Moore: Yes, 5:00 a.m., very exciting.

Ted Simons: I bet. What is a level one pediatric, give us a better definition here of a level one pediatric trauma center.

Kathleen Moore: A level one pediatric trauma center means we've been verified as a level one designation through the American College of Surgeons, so we have the ability to care for the sickest of the sickest children in patient population.

Ted Simons: And care for them quickly, I would imagine, quicker at least than in the past.

Kathleen Moore: Time is of the essence in an emergency department as well as when you're dealing with level 1 trauma.

Ted Simons: What does improve now with this new ER department?

Kathleen Moore: So we're very excited. One of the things, you know, that we looked at was from our frontline ems providers, and with our current existing ed they have quite a trek from the helipad to our existing er, so the helipad now, the ed is directly underneath that, so we are able to get patients from our heli pad to the er into the trauma base within about 90 seconds.

Ted Simons: I read it was close to like five minutes before.

Kathleen Moore: Yeah, it's a long time, especially when you're expediting care and you're trying to facilitate CPR, so that's a huge improvement for us, as well as the ambulance bay area expanded and downed so we can accommodate additional ambulances, our trauma bays have expanded from four to nine, so we can facilitate care for multiple victims faster.

Ted Simons: And privacy in those trauma bay, that's a big deal, isn't it?

Kathleen Moore: That's a big deal. And one of the nice things about this ER is that we really incorporated what our patient and family feedback was and that was that they did not feel that our current existing ed provided privacy. They felt that it was noisy, and again, they wanted expedited care. So we have built all of those things and integrated them into our new design.

Ted Simons: So design, this was designed originally 22,000 some odd patients. How many now?

Kathleen Moore: We saw over 83,000 last year.

Ted Simons: Wow.

Kathleen Moore: So the new ed will accommodate up to 100,000, and because we have a phenomenal senior leadership team, they have been very involved in this process, and they're already thinking about expanding further.

Ted Simons: Wow. You've keep in mind of referred to this a couple times regarding input from people, be it patients or doctors. Talk about how long it took to get all that information together.

Kathleen Moore: It took a long time. We started our capital campaign back in 2014 to raise $40 million and at that time, you know, we had put a multidisciplinary design team together. We had family input. We had physician input. We had our ems providers at the table because they are the front door to our facility. So again, you know, it takes a village, and it absolutely does, so we feel like we've really hit the elements that people gave us as to what they needed out of our ER.

Ted Simons: That certification from the American college of surgeons, that is a biggie.

Kathleen Moore: That is a biggie, we are proud to be the Arizona’s only level one verified through ACS.

Ted Simons: You've mentioned already talk of expanding and these sorts of things. What's next? It sounds like things are going great guns over there.

Kathleen Moore: First of all, we want to get into the spaces and make sure we use that as efficiently as possible. You know, phoenix children's continues to expand in multiple areas, they're expanding research, innovation, again, I think the ed and our trauma center is certainly, that is a site of innovation and incorporates a lot of state of the art equipment and technology to provide care.

Ted Simons: So when you were out there and the development was going on and you were trying to raise money and fund, this is what, $40 million in additions here, what did you tell people, why was this needed in Phoenix, Arizona?

Kathleen Moore: It's needed because, and I think again it was an easy sell, we had huge community supporters, and it is an expanding population, and everybody wants to facilitate the best care that we can provide to the children of Arizona. So again, I think anytime children are involved in any campaign, it's an easier sell, but listening to the stories of the patients that we've taken care of and the good outcomes that they've had, you know, pretty much sells itself. Their stories, you know, are phenomenal, and we're proud of that care, and we're proud that they're there to tell their stories.

Ted Simons: And so far, those who have seen the improvements, what are you hearing?

Kathleen Moore: They love it.

Ted Simons: I’ll bet they do.

Kathleen Moore: They're very excited.

Ted Simons: Congratulations. Again, the grand opening is tomorrow?

Kathleen Moore: Tomorrow, 5:00 a.m.

Ted Simons: You'll be busy at 5:01.

Kathleen Moore: Absolutely.

Ted Simons: Congratulations again.

Kathleen Moore: Thank you so much.

Ted Simons: Wednesday on Arizona Horizon, ASU president Michael Crow talks about the state attorney's lawsuit over in-state tuition for DACA recipients and tuition hikes overall and how to talk to kids about current events, Wednesday, 5:30 and 10:00 right here on Arizona horizon. Azpbs.org, that's the website if you want to see what we've done in the past, want to watch this program again or see what we have coming up in the future, including a joint program regarding the DACA program, all of that information, azpbs.org/horizon. That's it for now, I’m Ted Simons, thank you so much for joining us, have a great evening. ºº