The countdown has begun! February 11, marked 100 days until the first phase of Legacy Tower officially opens at Texas Children’s Hospital Texas Medical Center campus.
Through this 408-foot vertical expansion, Texas Children’s is adding 657,000 square feet. When Legacy Tower opens its doors to patients and families on Tuesday, May 22, the tower will house new operating rooms with one intraoperative MRI, as well as a new pediatric intensive care unit (ICU), which will span four floors and open with six ORs and 84 ICU beds, including dedicated surgical, neuro and transitional ICU beds.
When the second phase of the Legacy Tower opens in fall 2018, the tower will be the new home of Texas Children’s Heart Center® – ranked No. 1 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report in cardiology and heart surgery. The Heart Center will have an outpatient clinic, four catheterization labs with one intraprocedural MRI, cardiovascular intensive care unit, four cardiovascular operating rooms and cardiology acute care beds. The tower will also have a helistop, allowing for even greater access to Texas Children’s most critically ill patients.
Texas Children’s Legacy Tower team and its external partners have made significant progress to date, including some of our most recent construction, staffing and activation milestones listed below:
- Completion of mid-construction simulation-based clinical systems test for the OR/MRI. Detailed simulation and training planning to support the opening of Phase One.
- Garage 21 enhancements and reconfiguration to serve both the Pavilion for Women and Legacy Tower to improve traffic flow and wayfinding, increase public parking capacity and create clear access to the Pavilion and Legacy Tower elevators.
- Recruitment efforts have been progressing well. Nearly half of the 871 positions for Legacy Tower have been filled. The remaining positions are being actively recruited.
- Furniture as well as medical and technology equipment deployment is underway in Legacy Tower.
Texas Children’s also launched a new Legacy Tower website (www.legacytower.org) that features a countdown clock to opening day. The newly designed site provides highlights of all of the services housed in the new tower including a timeline of the phase one and phase two openings of Legacy Tower.
Other exciting milestones on the horizon include the delivery of our intraoperative MRI for Legacy Tower on February 18 and the anticipated arrival of our new Legacy Tower therapy dog, thanks to a generous gift from Texas Children’s CEO Mark Wallace and his wife Shannon in memory of their beloved dog, Cadence.