VCU news

By Anne Buckley

Children’s Hospital of Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University on Monday began construction of a new Children’s Pavilion that will be the largest and most advanced outpatient facility dedicated to children in the region.

The $168 million, 640,000-square-foot facility will house 72 exam rooms; a surgical area with two operating rooms and two procedure rooms; areas for diagnostic testing, imaging; and laboratory services. Construction also will include an attached parking garage with more than 600 spaces. It is being built adjacent to the existing Children’s Pavilion, across the street from the VCU Medical Center, and will bring under one roof the majority of outpatient pediatric services, which are currently spread throughout the medical campus.

“The new pavilion reinforces VCU’s significant commitment as a research university to human health, especially in advancing children’s health care,” said VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D. “The pavilion provides opportunities for VCU to have an even stronger impact in the community and to make a difference in the lives of so many children and families who need our help. Children’s health care significantly improves regionally and across the country when a research university invests in a comprehensive children’s hospital.”

Sheldon Retchin, M.D., vice president for health sciences at VCU and CEO of the VCU Health System, said the pavilion speaks to VCU’s multiyear investment in people, programs and facilities that support the specific needs of children.

Retchin highlighted milestones in children’s healthcare in Richmond from the joining together of VCU Health System and Children’s Hospital in 2010 to form Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU — the region’s only full-service hospital dedicated to enhancing the comprehensive, coordinated care of children — to increasing the medical and surgical faculty to more than 130 clinicians and clinician-scientists.

“In 2008, we opened a critical care hospital, which includes an award-winning 40-bed private room NICU, and we followed it two years later with a new pediatric emergency room, the only one in Central Virginia to offer 24-hour access to all pediatric specialists,” Retchin said.

John Duval, CEO of MCV Hospitals, said the Children’s Hospital of Richmond provides a continuum of care for children and cited several examples, including the development of a Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism; the creation of a comprehensive Concussion Management Program; and the establishment of the Pediatric Research Office that is actively managing more than 30 pediatric clinical trials.

“But at the end of the day, it’s all about the patient. And when your patient population includes some of the smallest and most vulnerable among us, it’s not only about the patient, but about the family as well,” Duval said. “At Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, children and their families drive everything we do.”

The pavilion, which is set to open in the summer of 2015, will have “clinic pods” organized for efficient multidisciplinary care. Each pod will include 12 exam rooms, a treatment room, support space and a centralized clinical team hub.

HKS Inc. is the architect, with construction by Skanska USA Building Inc.