By HFT Staff

Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital has expanded its Hollywood location from four to eight floors. The hospital’s growth allows Memorial Healthcare System to meet the continuous demand for specialized services with new surgical capabilities, treatments and patient/family programs added to its mix of already established offerings. 

To continue to meet the healthcare needs of children and families, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital is expanding from 180,000 square-feet to nearly 400,000 square-feet. In keeping with the hospital’s theme, Power of Play, the new floors – five through eight – are themed as: Imagine, Rhythm, Adventure and Grow, respectively. 

The hospital is also introducing a comprehensive cardiac care floor to optimize safety and quality, improve clinical outcomes and enhance the patient and family experience. The new 6th floor is designed to bring together complex procedures and specialized services in one location to minimize moving cardiac patients. The Helene and Stephen Weicholz Pediatric Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) will house 20 cardiac ICU beds, a preoperative and recovery care area, and four state-of-the-art cardiac procedural suites with The Frederick A. DeLuca Foundation Cardiac Hybrid Operating Room, a hybrid operating room to perform cardiac catheterizations, electrophysiology, interventional radiology and cardiothoracic open-heart surgeries. 

On the 5th floor, the new Inpatient Rehabilitation Gym will feature several therapeutic rooms, a sensory room, a Virtual Reality treadmill, a Bioness Vector Gait & Safety System to provide additional support and safety when moving around the room, and access to the outdoor Hope Terrace, where patients can expand their inpatient rehabilitation journey to the outdoors. The inpatient rehabilitation nursing unit will consist of six large private rooms that will provide families with plenty of space during their admission. The expansion will allow the medical team to treat patients with more complex diagnoses who will benefit from an inpatient rehabilitation stay. 

The expansion project is a $166 million investment, with nearly a third of that amount being generated through community philanthropy.