CoxHealth and CBRE Healthcare announced the completion of the patient move for the new Cox Medical Center South's West Tower addition.

Thirty years ago CoxHealth made an impressive move, transporting its Intensive Care Nursery patients from Cox North to the new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Cox Medical Center South.

The new West Tower addition was another monumental move as the tiny lives in the NICU were carefully moved into the new NICU. Over the course of three days, five inpatient units and approximately 75 patients were relocated.

Each baby required a complete team of experts on hand as they were slowly transported through hallways. All children in the pediatrics unit were also relocated to the new West Tower. The new tower will give patients more comfort and privacy, said Beth Rutherford, the hospital's administrative director of nursing. Whereas patients have often had to share hospital rooms, that won't be the case inside the new 10-story addition that houses the new Dee Ann White Women's and Children's hospital and the Jared Neuroscience Center, Rutherford said.

"The private rooms are a huge deal," Rutherford said of the 343,000-square-foot tower, which has 124 new beds. The $130 million project took just over two years to complete. "Our goal is to get to a completely private patient bed model and the new West Tower will certainly help us with that," said Rod Schaffer, vice president for facilities management. "We have relocated a lot of our folks that are in very challenging spaces, spaces that were built back in the early '80s and are outdated."

The addition is the hospital's largest since it was originally built in 1983. The extra space will be needed to meet patient needs in the coming years, said spokeswoman Michelle Leroux. Schaffer said that 95 percent of the addition was constructed by local companies. The tower's ground floor is home to the new neonatal intensive care unit. The unit houses 28 beds and each infant will have its own room, and the rooms will have a twin bed so one parent can stay overnight.

The floor also has a lounge with a kitchen, free wireless Internet, TV, a shower and locker facilities for parents. A 26-bed pediatric unit is located on the building's first floor. Each of these rooms, in addition to being private, provides parents with seating areas, a desk, outlets and a curtain for privacy. The rooms are also equipped with an Xbox gaming system. The second floor consists of a 32-private room postpartum nursing unit and support spaces.

The large rooms allow babies to stay with moms and provide sufficient space for family visits. The third, fourth and fifth floors of the tower are shell space to allow for future expansion. Floor six is mechanical and floors seven, eight, and nine are dedicated to the Jared Neuroscience Center (JNC).

The JNC brings together four physician practices - Neurosurgery from Springfield Neurological and Spine Institute, Neurology from Ferrell-Duncan Clinic, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation from SNSI, and Neuropsychology – under one roof.

These groups were previously located in three separate MOBs surrounding Cox South. Also located within the JNC are the inpatient neurology unit on the 8th floor and the new ALS Parkinson’s Clinic on the 9th floor. The new neuro unit is home to 32 beds outfitted with telemetry monitoring eight of which have built-in patient lifts and two are outfitted with advanced electronic monitoring.

The new tower will enable CoxHealth to expand on their mission to improve the health of the communities they serve through quality health care, education and research. “Our neuroscience and women’s and children’s teams are an absolute strength of this organization. We deliver more than 3,000 babies a year, and our neuroscience team has been rated number one in the nation for spinal fusion by CareChex,” says Steve Edwards, CEO.

“We want to complement first-rate care with first-rate facilities, and this expansion allows us to do that.” “CBRE Healthcare is honored to have partnered with CoxHealth through this journey,” stated Matt Hufnagle, Managing Director for CBRE Healthcare.

“This new tower will ensure that CoxHealth fulfills their vision to be the best for those who need them.”

CBRE Healthcare provided CoxHealth Project Management Services that include: Launch Gap Analysis; Facilities Planning Committee Organization; Project Work Review and Validation; Master Program Schedule and Budget Development and Maintenance; CON Submission; Project Delivery Team Selection; Agreement Development; Project Staffing Plan and Project Implementation Plan Development; Owner-Furnished Vendor Management; Patient Occupancy and Activation Planning and Management.