Egleston Children’s Hospital, a subsidiary of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, filed a Certificate of Need application for additional beds for its planned hospital at North Druid Hills Road in Brookhaven.
 
The application relates to additional beds and expanded services that, when combined with its recently approved relocation Letter of Determination from the Georgia Department of Community Health, will allow Children’s to build a 446-bed pediatric hospital in DeKalb County. The planned hospital will relocate the beds and services from the current Egleston hospital. The CON filing is required by the Georgia Department of Community Health for new or expanded healthcare construction and services and is a next step in the master plan for the North Druid Hills campus, located at the Northeast intersection of I-85 and North Druid Hills Road.
 
“Filing this CON is a significant milestone for developing a transformative healthcare campus that meets the needs of Georgia’s children,” said Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Board Chair Jonathan Goldman. “Our rigorous planning process shows that Children’s must grow to continue to meet the vital needs of kids and their families in our state.”
 
When completed, the North Druid Hills campus will ultimately include the relocated hospital, support staff buildings, the Center for Advanced Pediatrics and more than 20 acres of greenspace and miles of walking trails and paths on and around the site. In addition to its investment in the campus, Children’s is committed to improving the surrounding area by investing more than $40 million in traffic and infrastructure improvements.
 
“This hospital and the campus surrounding it – along with other key investments – are a vote of confidence in the future of Atlanta and Georgia, setting the stage for Children’s for decades to come,” said Children’s CEO Donna Hyland. “Georgia’s children will continue to need access to the kind of specialized pediatric care that only Children’s can provide.”
 
Key details included in the application:
 
The planned hospital will include two patient bed towers, which include the AFLAC Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, neo-natal intensive care units, pediatric intensive care units, and cardiac intensive care units.

The patient towers, connected via a shared lobby, rise above five floors of diagnostic and treatment space, including surgical suits, cardiovascular suites, emergency department, interventional radiology and other critical services necessary for the hospital. The application anticipates Children’s North Druid Hills hospital offering all the services offered at Egleston.

A variety of amenities and features requested by patient families, including larger rooms with sleep areas, windows with “healing views” and plentiful access to natural light are planned. The larger and standardized patient rooms – also in line with modern medical standards – allow more technology at the patient’s bedside, enable families to be more involved in their child’s care, and increase flexibility to support different levels of patient needs.

Visits to Children’s, including Egleston hospital, are increasing faster than overall population growth, driving the need for additional beds. This increased utilization is partially driven by improved outcomes for pediatric patients requiring a more intensive level of care for pediatric complex chronic conditions.

These patients often require a lifetime of specialized care.

The connected clinic and office building will allow doctors to meet with and treat non-critical patients in spaces immediately adjacent to the hospital, creating efficiency and saving time for physicians, patients and families.

Total square footage will be more than 1.8 million square feet, including the hospital, attached clinic and office building, and central utility plant.

A total cost of $1.5 billion is noted, which includes the cost of the hospital as well as the attached clinic and office building, central utility plant, hospital- and campus-related infrastructure and associated contingencies. The cost of the hospital itself remains $1.3 billion.
 
The CON application will be reviewed by the Georgia Department of Community Health and Children’s anticipates a decision before the end of 2018.
 
Also on the North Druid Hills campus, the Center for Advanced Pediatrics is scheduled to open next month, and two support buildings are currently under construction. Completion of the support buildings in 2020 will allow Children’s employees to vacate current offices on the site of the planned hospital, allowing construction to begin. The North Druid Hills hospital is slated to open in 2025.
 
Additional information and application details can be found at www.choa.org/CON.