New hospital in heart of Missouri aims to improve care for moms and children

By St. Louis Post-Dispatch via My Courier-Tribune

COLUMBIA — A nearly $250 million new children’s hospital and birth center will open this month on the University of Missouri Health Care campus here, aiming to consolidate and improve care for rural patients in Columbia and beyond.

The facility will replace the MU Women’s and Children’s Hospital, which for 14 years has operated about 10 minutes away from the health system’s main campus and flagship University Hospital, the only facility in central Missouri equipped and staffed to handle the most severe illnesses and injuries.

The new seven-story MU Children’s Hospital and Birthing Center will be attached to University Hospital, to allow for more integrated care, especially for patients with serious complications or complex needs.

“This hospital provides more capacity for us to save and improve the lives of children and parents across our state through innovative and comprehensive care,” said MU Health Care CEO Ric Ransom.

The facility will bring 25 pediatric subspecialties together, provide all private rooms in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) so all parents can stay with their babies, and expand the capacity of labor and delivery to handle 4,000 births a year. Last year, the hospital saw 2,500 births.

“I have found that patients prefer to come here than going to the big city,” said Dr. Jean Goodman, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at MU. “Patients from the edges of the borders of Missouri in all directions will come see us.”

The improvements in the care of moms and newborns are crucial as the state grapples with among the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation, which Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has made a priority to address with a $4.3 million statewide plan that includes efforts such as developing quality care protocols for providers and creating a collaborative of mental health experts they can call to get immediate advice.

Goodman said caring for complicated pregnancies requires collaboration among a range of medical specialists from cardiologists to psychiatrists, not just obstetricians and gynecologists. Having services across two different campuses fractured that effort.

“Everyone comes to the patient, rather than the patients having to move to multiple different places to be seen when they are seeing multiple specialists,” she said. University Hospital houses the adult intensive care unit and the pediatric and adult emergency departments.

Pediatric services moved to the new building about a month ago, while the labor and delivery and NICU will be making the move the second week of June.

By June 12, the MU Children’s Hospital and Birthing Center is expected to be fully operating with 160 patient beds, 15 more than the former location.

The additional beds include two in labor and delivery, one in pediatric intensive care, six for pre-childbirth patients and six in the NICU.

The building is designed with kids in mind. A two-story tall imitation tree towers over the lobby. Each floor’s décor is inspired by animals native to Missouri, such as the bluebird, otter and bobcat.

Labor and delivery is designed to feel more spa-like and includes more low-intervention rooms for those with low-risk pregnancies seeking to have a non-medicated birth. Staff has grown from one certified nurse midwife to four.

There’s also room to grow in the 323,000-square-foot building. Plans are already in the works to open a fetal care center, where surgeries and interventions can be performed on a fetus for certain complications.

“There is nothing more beautiful to me than to see a normal, full-term uncomplicated delivery. That’s the model that we want everyone to have,” Goodman said, “but in the background, in the shadows, is everything you could possibly need for a potential complication.”

The former Women’s and Children’s Hospital will be turned into an ambulatory surgery center, officials said, as the health system needs more space for outpatient surgeries.