HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood has undergone a $166 million expansion.
The pediatric-specialty hospital doubled in size to 400,000 square-feet with new surgical capabilities, treatments and patient and family programs.
“Everything about this space is state of the art from a quality and safety perspective but even better than that is very much conducive to an environment for children,” said Caitlin Stella, CEO of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.
The new facility will include a new innovative technology that offers real-time magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, that can be done during brain surgeries.
“This is intraoperative. When you’re resecting low grade tumors you can bring the MRI in before you’re done closing for the surgery and you can tell if you have gross total, so it’s a second pair of eyes and tells you if you got the efficient outcomes for your surgery,” said Dr. Daxa Patel, Pediatric Neurosurgeon.
That means the littlest patients will not have to move in between rooms for operation and imaging.
“We’re very happy to be able to offer this to the community. We’re focused on the patient’s safety and the best outcomes possible,” said Vaneker Johnson, Registered Nurse.
On the cardiac floor, Local 10 News learned all about the integration within the surgical floors, like an enhanced interventional radiology suite and hybrid operating rooms for cardiac surgeries.
“This is a new hybrid room that allows us to the first time ever, to be able to perform both surgical and catheterization procedures in the same setting, on the same patient,” said Dr. Thomas Forbes, Chief of Cardiology.
Local 10 News met Gabe at the child life zone. He is the first patient to see these colorful new features while he stays at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, waiting for a new heart. On this floor there are exhibits for kids of all ages, therapeutic play areas, production space, TVs and lots of open spaces.
The target date for patients to be able to access services in the expanded area is Nov. 8.