- A preview of what the expansion of A.I. duPont Hospital for Children is expected to look like when completed.
(click to enlarge – courtesy Nemours)
A wide array of dignitaries, staff, patients and their families joined officials at Nemours/A.I duPont Hospital for Children on their Wilmington campus Tuesday to mark the beginning of the hospital’s three-year, $260 million expansion effort with a “sky-breaking” ceremony.
The expansion project’s first phase is its largest and most significant. It will add approximately 450 thousand square feet of space to the campus with construction of a five story patient care building adjacent to the current hospital. The new facilities will include private patient rooms that hospital officials describe as “family-centered” to replace most of the hospital’s current semi-private rooms. Plans also call for a new Emergency Department and rooftop helipad to aid in the hospital’s planned move from a Level II to Level I State Trauma designation, along with additional family support spaces and amenities and underground parking. Phase one construction is expected to be finished in the fall of 2013 and the new facility ready for use early in 2014.
“It will be a place that pulls together all of our best learning and practice over the last several years, as well as leaving room for further discoveries,” said A.I. duPont Hospital for Children CEO Dr. Kevin Churchwell, “We’re not just adding another building. It’s an investment in the welfare of our children as we move from a hospital administering to children to being a family centered healthcare system.”
The remaining phases of the project will renovate and rework existing facilities based on the hospital’s new configuration and usage.
A.I. duPont Hospital for Children Begins Expansion Project
Highlights from the project’s “sky-breaking” and excerpts of interview with hospital CEO Dr. Kevin Chruchwell.
