The New Children’s and Women’s Replacement Hospital Facility

An Environment of Quality Care

For larger image

On October 6, 2006, we held a groundbreaking ceremony for our new state-of-the-art University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Women's Hospital. For decades, we have provided the best in specialized care for thousands of patients. Now we take the next step to ensure that future generations of children and women will have even greater access to our care.

In addition to providing safe, effective and progressive care for women and children, the new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital has been designed to provide a new and larger home for specialty services for newborns, children and pregnant women – not offered anywhere else in Michigan – such as the pediatric liver transplant program, the Level I Pediatric Trauma Program, the Pediatric and Adolescent Home Ventilator Program, and the Craniofacial Anomalies Program, high-risk pregnancy services and specialty gynecological services.

This is our way to grow and prepare for the future.

Who is the new facility for?

We have designed the new women’s and children’s replacement facility for you – our  patients and your families. Your care and treatment is important to us. We want every interaction you have with the University of Michigan Health System to be positive and caring. That is why we live by our motto: “Patients and Families First.”

We sought input from patients and their families – and teams of more than 450 current Mott and Women’s faculty and staff – to make sure that the layout and design of the new facility will help us deliver the best care to you.

What will the new facility do?

The new facility will enhance the inpatient and outpatient services within the current Mott Hospital, the world-renowned Michigan Congenital Heart Center, the Birth Center and the Holden Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The facility also will be home to numerous pediatric specialty clinics within the U-M Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases as well as Psychology, Autism and Orthopaedics. There will be an area for both adult and pediatric bone marrow transplant patients and pediatric non-cancer infusion, too, with a dedicated infusion pharmacy on the floor.

The facility will enable us to keep pace with the latest in medical technology and communications.

Family-centered Care and a Home Away from Home

All patient rooms will be private, have a window and a place for a family member to stay with the patient. The planned 300-square-foot pediatric inpatient rooms all will include a computer capable of connecting children to their classrooms and those at home, and providing access to the Internet and educational programs during their stay. All rooms will be configured for wireless technology, which can be used by parents as well as the child’s health care providers. Plus, all inpatient rooms will be equipped with special Hepa filtering air handling.

Within the Women’s Hospital Birth Center, the labor, delivery and recovery rooms will be 300 to 360 square feet to allow for access to state-of-the-art care, as well as space for families to celebrate the birth of their new babies.

A family resource center – complete with a library, teaching rooms, computer access and a place to meet in private with social workers and other health care providers – will be located in the main lobby.

The main lobby will offer entertainment and other activities to help reduce stress for parents, siblings and other family members of patients, and will open into an outdoor garden park that will have play space for children and a reflection area.

A meditation space, a gift shop and a food services area will be located nearby.

Also incorporated into the design are a family workout room, a family accommodation area – a dorm-style living area for parents with children in the pediatric ICU – and greeters on every floor to increase security and provide wayfinding for visitors.

Faculty and Staff Communication

To optimize patient care, communication stations for physicians, nurses and other health care providers will be located throughout the floors to keep staff close to patients and in communication with each other. Staff team rooms on every floor will provide social workers, Child and Family Life experts, and other health care providers with a confidential area to discuss patients’ care and map out care strategies.

Plus, the entire facility includes plans for wireless and paperlight operations for staff.

Design Features

The new facility will span the length of two football fields. The facility will consist of two conjoined towers – a 9-story clinic tower and a 12-story inpatient tower – that will bridge inpatient and outpatient services within the same disciplines. This will create a programmatic approach to patient care on each floor.

The obstetric and gynecological clinics will link to the Women’s Hospital Birth Center, and the world-renowned Michigan Congenital Heart Center will reside on its own floor in the facility. 

Prominent in both size and scope, the facility will host wide spans of glass to bring natural lighting into the facility, and will provide inpatient rooms with scenic views of the Nichols Arboretum and Huron River. The design also will incorporate curved forms and building insets that relate to the arboretum – humanizing the scale of the hospital. A sky-lit canopy will greet patients and guests while a two-story lobby and waiting area – overlooking outdoor courtyards – will create an inviting entry into the facility. 

Within the 1.1 million-square-foot facility, 855,000 square feet will be designated for inpatient space and 245,000 square feet will be devoted to clinic and office space, which includes about 180,000 square feet of shell space for future growth and expansion.

Plans for the facility include 16 pediatric operating rooms, four pediatric surgical procedure rooms, four cesarean section suites, 20 rooms for antepartum or postpartum care, and 264 private inpatient beds upon opening with capacity for an additional 84 beds in the future. The 264 bed count will consist of 30 for women’s birthing, 26 adult and 26 pediatric for bone marrow transplants, 46 for pediatric intensive care and pediatric cardio-thoracic, and 40 for neonatal intensive care.

Looking toward the future, the operating rooms have been designed in anticipation of advancements in portable imagining technology, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI. Plans further call for increasing imaging technology and interventional radiology in the facility, and expanding Mott’s ability to do minimally invasive surgery.

Special Medical Features

The new facility will be home to one of the only pediatric emergency medicine centers in the state. With a separate entrance off East Medical Center Drive, the emergency center will be staffed by dedicated pediatric health care workers, and will be Hazmat capable, allowing it to be fully prepared, like the main University Hospital’s Emergency Department, to care for patients in the event of a major outbreak or disaster. A helipad atop the 12-story tower with direct elevator access to the pediatric emergency center will provide young patients flown in by Survival Flight, the UMHS air medical service, with immediate access to emergency and urgent care. 

History

C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and the University of Michigan’s Women's Hospital have collectively provided the best in specialized care to hundreds of thousand of patients since opening in 1969 and 1950, respectively. The world of science and medicine has changed dramatically over the past four decades, however, and patient care, research and medical technology have made extraordinary advances. Now it is time for our hospitals to grow and prepare for the future.

Once this building project is complete, the existing Mott hospital will be used to benefit the entire Health System, primarily adult services.