September 19, 2017

Since the topping out celebration of Texas Children’s Legacy Tower nearly seven month ago, significant construction milestones have been reached inside the tower’s 400-foot-tall structure at Texas Children’s Medical Center campus.

Carefully designed to promote the safest possible environment to care for our most critically ill patients and their families, construction is underway on the patient care rooms in the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVICU), pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and the progressive care unit (PCU). Last year, a series of patient care simulations were conducted to identify and eliminate any latent safety defects in the final design of the critical care tower before actual construction began.

Based on helpful feedback from our providers and patient families, the size of the critical care rooms inside the Legacy Tower will be between 350 to 450 square feet – three times the size of the hospital’s current ICU rooms. The rooms will feature a dedicated family space, a bathroom and shower, and care teams will have enhanced visibility and monitoring between patient rooms and into the patient rooms from the nurses’ work stations. The ICU rooms also will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology including a boom that will provide gas, power and data from the ceiling.

“Booms allow us to position the patient almost anywhere in the 360-degree circle,” said Chief of Critical Care Medicine Dr. Lara Shekerdemian. “This means that we can use some very state-of-the-art equipment for mounting all of the pumps, monitors and ventilators at the patient’s bedside while keeping the equipment off the floor.”

The Legacy Tower’s high intensity operating rooms and intraoperative state-of-the-art MRI suite also will provide dedicated subspecialty care for surgical patients.

“Our pediatric surgical patients are different than other ICU patients,” said Texas Children’s Chief of Plastic Surgery Dr. Larry Hollier. “For the first time, we’re going to have them in a setting where the care is designed specifically for that surgical patient, and that’s going to be located one floor above the operating rooms. The new tower will help us increase our OR capacity so we are not turning patients away from receiving critical care.”

The Legacy Tower will open in two phases. The first phase will occur in May 2018 when the PICU, PCU, operating rooms and Radiology open. A few months later, the Heart Center will move into the new tower in August 2018.

The 25-floor Legacy Tower will house 126 beds for pediatric and cardiovascular intensive care, six new operating rooms (ORs) with the latest technology to complement the hospital’s existing 19 ORs, and will be the new home of Texas Children’s Heart Center, including the outpatient clinic, four cardiovascular ORs and four catheterization labs. This vertical expansion will help reinvest in the programs needed to provide the highest level of care to our most critically ill patients.

“I don’t know of any other children’s hospital in the country that has the type of experience that Texas Children’s has in bringing all of these elements together,” Hollier said. “With larger, more functional spaces, we will be able to provide patients and families with the best possible environment to receive care.”

June 27, 2017

While construction progress continues to be made on the vertical expansion of Texas Children’s Legacy Tower, several changes to our shuttle service routes will take effect starting on Thursday, July 6.

To accommodate construction work on the new tower, the Level 1 and 3 South Elevator Lobby and escalators will be closed for several months at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. As a result, the Pavilion for Women Direct Stop will be moved to a temporary shuttle stop on Fannin Street.

Two additional shuttles will be added to the Pavilion for Women and Feigin Direct routes during peak morning and afternoon rush hour.

“We are increasing the number of direct shuttles to Feigin and Pavilion for Women to minimize the impact on employees who rely on the shuttle service to get to and from work at Texas Children’s Medical Center Campus,” said Ransome Shirley, assistant director of Supply Chain Management. “This change will increase the round trip time for the Pavilion for Women Direct route by 8 to 9 minutes. Even though the Pavilion route will be longer due to the increased number of buses, wait times should remain the same.”

One significant change that will impact employees will be the return route to Garage 19. The return route will be longer for employees who take the shuttle from the Pavilion for Women Fannin Stop. The return route will start from Fannin to John Freeman to Bertner to Old Spanish Trail and then to Greenbriar.

To alert staff of these new changes, signage for the new shuttle re-routes will be placed at Garage 19, Meyer, Feigin and the Pavilion for Women shuttle stops.

Circulator routes and hours of operation will remain the same.

For more information on our shuttle services and pick up schedules, click here. To track the shuttles location in real time, this information can be accessed on your desk top here and on your smartphone here.

Legacy Tower Garage B3 and B4 elevators

After more than two months of renovation, the B4 South Elevator lobby of the Legacy Tower Garage (TMC garage 21) is now available for public and staff use. Meanwhile, the B3 South Elevator lobby will be out of service for at least three months as its renovation gets underway.

While parking will be permitted on level B3, elevator access will be restricted to the Pavilion for Women B3 lobby (North). Signage has been placed inside the South elevator cabs and on the construction barricades at Level B3 to direct physicians, staff and guests to the Pavilion for Women.

Contact Facilities Project Manager Ted Gillis at ext. 4-2368 with questions.

February 14, 2017

On February 9, Texas Children’s and W.S. Bellows Construction celebrated the topping out of Texas Children’s new Pediatric Tower in the Texas Medical Center.

Under a large tent across the street from the tower’s 400-foot-tall structure, nearly 700 guests cheered as Texas Children’s President and CEO Mark A. Wallace, Texas Children’s Board of Trustees Chair Ann Lents, and W.S. Bellows Construction President Laura Bellows, led the countdown.

“Five, four, three, two, one, hoist that tree!”

As the guests eagerly watched from below, a 7-foot-tall Loblolly pine tree was hoisted to the top of the hospital’s Pediatric Tower commemorating the successful completion of the building’s external structure.

Chase Fondren, whose daughter Ella was treated for biliary atresia as an infant, shared his family’s experience at Texas Children’s and how the vertical expansion of the Pediatric Tower will benefit other patients and families.

“We experienced first-hand the issues of not having enough bed choices, of the small PICU rooms, and having to fit in the hospital’s current capacity,” Fondren said. “I am extremely excited that this building behind us is going to triple the size of the PICU. That’s been a much needed expansion and will be a huge asset for patient families.”

During the topping out ceremony, Wallace recognized everyone for their contributions and support of Texas Children’s Pediatric Tower expansion. He applauded the phenomenal leadership of Texas Children’s Board of Trustees, our project partners, FKP Architects and W.S. Bellows Construction, as well as Texas Children’s executive leadership team, the Pediatric Tower leadership team and all of our donors who have so generously contributed to the Promise Campaign, which will partially support facility developments for the hospital’s new tower.

“All of you who are here today helped us achieve this construction milestone of our pediatric tower which will provide the opportunity for us to serve even more patients and their families,” Wallace said. “No longer will we have to say no to a child who needs to be transferred into an ICU. No longer will we have to cancel surgery or reschedule surgery because we don’t have a CVICU bed or critical care bed. That building right there is the solution to these issues.”

Slated to be completed in 2018, the 25-floor Pediatric Tower will house 126 beds for pediatric and cardiovascular intensive care, six new operating rooms (ORs) with the latest technology to complement the hospital’s existing 19 ORs, and will be the new home of Texas Children’s Heart Center, including the outpatient clinic, four cardiovascular ORs and four catheterization labs. This expansion includes reinvesting in the programs needed by the hospital’s most critically ill patients.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about the building,” said Lents as she addressed the crowd. “It’s all about the patients and being sure that today, in five years and in 20 years, we can help the children who need the care and the treatment that only Texas Children’s Hospital can give them.”

Following the tree topping ceremony, guests enjoyed a delicious BBQ lunch and some event goers got a tour of the construction site led by Texas Children’s Pediatric Tower leadership team and crew members from W.S. Bellows Construction, who is overseeing the vertical expansion project.

View photo gallery of the Pediatric Tower Topping Out event below.

February 7, 2017

2817mainstreetlot640Preparations to celebrate the topping out of the Pediatric Tower structure are underway.

The Main Street Lot, located across from Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women at 6650 Main Street, will be closed beginning at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, February 7, until 7 a.m. on Friday, February 10.

All cars must be out of the lot by 6 a.m. on Tuesday, February 7.

Alternative patient and visitor parking is available in the following areas:

  • Valet parking at Pavilion for Women
  • Garage 21 (Pavilion for Women)
  • Garage 16 (Clinical Care Tower)
  • Garage 12 (West Tower)
  • Garage 1 (Methodist Hospital)
  • Garage 2 (St. Luke’s Hospital)

Employees: Please park in your assigned location.

December 13, 2016

“We’re on the eighteenth floor of the CVICU and watching the tower every single day make so much progress so quickly, makes us want it right now,” said Jessica Gaustad, a cardiology nurse at Texas Children’s Heart Center.

Like Gaustad and so many other Texas Children’s employees, it’s hard not to notice the incredible progress that’s been made on Texas Children’s Pediatric Tower. As each day passes, the tower is getting taller and taller. Since construction work began one year ago, 16 floors have been built on the existing 6-floor base next to Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. Three more floors are being built to complete the external structure of the 19-floor vertical expansion of the pediatric tower.

To see how far we’ve come along, you don’t have to look very far. This time lapse video highlighting the pediatric tower construction also includes animation of the different critical care services that will be housed in the tower once the approximately 640,000-square foot structure is completed in August 2018.

Texas Children’s Heart Center will have eight dedicated floors in the new tower to house the Heart Center outpatient clinic, catheterization lab, cardiovascular intensive care unit, a cardiovascular operating room and cardiology acute care beds. Also, the tower will be home to a new Pediatric Intensive Care Unit that will span four floors and open with 84 beds, including neuro ICU rooms, surgical ICU rooms and a progressive care unit.

Additional features of the tower include a total of 10 operating rooms, one radiology suite, faculty offices and a helistop on the roof of the tower to transport high acuity patients to Texas Children’s.

Earlier this year, a series of pre-construction simulation activities led by Dr. Jennifer Arnold’s simulation team were conducted to ensure the final interior layout of the pediatric tower would be designed in a way that promotes the safest possible environments to care for critically ill patients and their families.

“We were able to tweak a lot of things from how we envisioned beds being situated in a room to where the code carts are going to be located to even simple things like clock placement,” Gaustad said. “Families were also a big part of this process as well. Their feedback was incorporated into the final design decisions.”

As for the design theme and colors, the pediatric tower’s public spaces will embody the Beauty of Texas. Floors will have different colors for wayfinding. Floor patterns will depict trails and streams. Curving walls and ceilings will mimic canyons, skies and clouds.

While much progress still needs to be made in anticipation of the August 2018 opening, Texas Children’s will host a topping out celebration on February 9, 2017, to mark the construction milestone of completing the tower’s external structure.

“There’s going to be a time before you know it, that we’re going to have space to accommodate families,” said NICU nurse Nicole Leathers. “We’re going to have space to make the patient family experience more comfortable and will have more space to deliver the best care to our critically ill patients.”

For Veronica Velez, an Orthopedic surgery coordinator, she envisions the many benefits the new tower will bring for many years to come.

“When I am a retired nurse and there’s a new generation of nurses working on those floors that are being built right now, they can say a lot of thought went into this and they did a great job.”

October 25, 2016

102716towere640“It’s amazing how quickly the pediatric tower is being built,” said WenZheng Zhang, an administrative coordinator at Texas Children’s Cancer Center, as he observed the progress from his15th floor window at the Feigin Center. “It’s like watching ants use one LEGO block at a time to build the whole tower.”

Last December, the only visible sign of construction was the installation of the tower crane that was hoisted over the south end of Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. Nearly one year later, tremendous progress has been made on the pediatric tower’s 19-floor vertical expansion project.

“We’re thrilled to see all of the pieces coming together,” said Jill Pearsall, Texas Children’s assistant vice president of Facilities Planning and Development. “So far, we’ve completed 12 floors, added 17 new elevators, and we have begun installing our Texas granite exterior walls on the structure.”

Beyond these visible achievements, lots of progress is also being made inside the tower. Earlier this year, a series of simulation activities were conducted to ensure the final layout of the pediatric tower would be designed in a way that promotes the safest possible environments to care for our critically ill patients and their families.

In June, Dr. Jennifer Arnold’s simulation team and the CareFirst Quality, Service and Safety Project Team led by Dr. Angelo Giardino, Trudy Leidich and Maria Happe, successfully completed two pre-construction simulation-based design tests on the proposed layouts for the OR/MRI and the Cath Lab/MRI suites.

Inside a large warehouse mock up resembling the planned design of the operating room and adjacent MRI, a multidisciplinary team of neurosurgeons, radiologists, nurses, respiratory therapists, anesthesiologists, patient families and other support staff participated in simulated patient care scenarios and provided their feedback. After OR/MRI simulations, the operating room was re-constructed as a Cath Lab and MRI.

“The design based simulations were invaluable,” said Janet Winebar, director of perioperative services at Texas Children’s. “With the Pediatric Tower, we are trying to create designs that drive efficiency and safety for our patient care, not just recreate our existing OR suites. Having actual spaces to simulate that care helped us to test our thoughts for design. We found that some of our designs needed tweaking to make them work.”

Key recommendations that emerged from the simulations included reconfiguring the MRI control rooms in the Cath Lab and Neuro OR to improve patient visibility and team coordination, modifying room entry doors to prevent barriers to safe access and patient transport, and repositioning equipment for easy access for all providers.

Design teams will integrate the clinical recommendations from all simulation activities into the final interior design of the critical care tower.

Other recent progress updates include:

  • An activation kickoff was held on September 26 for all departments involved in the activation of the Pediatric Tower. The meeting attended by more than 90 participants from over 40 departments revisited the purpose of CareFirst, the initial planning/completed work on the pediatric tower and the next steps for activation.
  • The interior design and color concepts have been finalized for the pediatric tower’s public spaces. The tower’s designated building color will be gold/yellow and the interior design theme is “The Beauty of Texas.”
  • Voalte wireless antennas were added to four ORs. Voalte technology roll-out will be completed by the end of October.
  • Interior build out construction is scheduled to begin in December once the City of Houston issues a building permit.
  • A topping out celebration is scheduled for February 9, 2017, to mark the construction milestone of completing the tower’s structure.

If everything continues to progress on schedule, Texas Children’s pediatric tower is slated to be completed by 2018.

September 13, 2016

91316chroniclephilanthropy250Texas Children’s is the honored sponsor for every Tuesday’s “Houston Legends” series. For more than 20 weeks, we will showcase the legendary care Texas Children’s has provided since 1954, and focus on milestone moments in our unique history. Also, a complementary website offers a more detailed look at our past, our story and our breakthroughs.

On the right is the Texas Children’s ad that is featured in this week’s Chronicle. Click the ad to visit our companion website at texaschildrens.org/legendarycare. The website will change weekly to complement the newspaper ad, which will be published in section A of the Chronicle on Tuesdays for the next several weeks. We also will spotlight this special feature weekly on Connect, so stay tuned to learn and share our rich history.

Click here to visit the Promise website.