The Broward Health System is almost ready to open it's new building in Coral Springs.
A new tower with over 112,000 square-feet focusing mainly on the health of new moms and babies has been added onto the existing Coral Springs Medical Center.
The hospital is aiming to open the $65 million dollar expansion to patients on Sept. 6. The entire hospital system serves the northern - and majority - of residents in Broward County.
The first two floors will house more space for maternity and obstetrics services.
The Medical Director for Neonatology, Dr. Arlene Boykin, said that by making private all patient and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) rooms, families can stay with their babies longer and be more involved in their care.
“It takes what has become cramped, and it really spreads us out and allows us more ease of care,” Boykin said. “We have more space to work within the labor and delivery suite or the [operating room] suites.”
Physicians, including Boykin, gave input in the building and design stages of the building. The suggested details like refrigerators and milk warming machines in each NICU room to encourage breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact between parents and baby, Boykin said.
The current labor and delivery and postpartum sections of the hospital next door will be used for future expansion of Broward Health Coral Springs’ cardiac services.
The CEO for Broward Health Coral Springs, Jared Smith, said the emphasis on private rooms should help improve baby outcomes.
“We’re able to care for the tiniest babies here in an advanced, level 2 NICU,” Smith said.
Some can be born up to 12 weeks premature.
“These babies need to grow, they need to sleep, they need to rest," Smith said. "The private room setting allows that, it helps us reducing infection as well. On top of that, the parents can stay with their baby 24/7."
But the expansion also gives the hospital the opportunity to upgrade its equipment, including for example new da Vinci surgical robots which are used to cut down on more invasive ways of doing common procedures.
"As we’ve put in and introduced advanced robotics - the teams are larger, the equipment needs are much greater,” Smith said. "So you want large operating rooms to be able to handle not only today, but in the future."
The third floor of the new tower is dedicated to private recovery rooms for surgery patients, including people recovering from orthopedic, vascular, and other types of surgeries outside the maternity specialty.
Smith said population growth in Parkland and Coral springs influenced the decision to increase the capacity of the maternity ward. Over the last decade, the City of Parkland’s population alone has grown by nearly 50 percent to more than 32,000 people - according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
"If you look at the growth rate over the years in Coral Springs and Parkland, Parkland has grown exponentially,” Smith said. "It used to be just a small town, now it's much larger."
The fourth floor is being left empty for now, to provide space for the expansion of another specialty in the future.
