171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
800-424-MUSC
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April 2008
The Medical University has entered a new era with the opening of Ashley River Tower (the ART). Our MUSC specialists in adult heart, vascular and gastrointestinal diseases and their patients now have a beautiful new facility for patient care.
Most of us believe that this new building is a benefit not only for those services, but for the Medical University as a whole. However, we do not want to become an institution where there are "haves and have-nots," with those of us who didn't move remaining in a lower standard facility.
Although there are issues with current resource availability, the Children's Hospital administration is working hard to assure that is not in-fact the case. We can divide our facility goals into short, medium and long term. In the near term, evacuated units in the main hospital are being renovated and moved around in a domino fashion. The result will be a new 26 bed pediatric med-surg unit on 7 East by the end of the year. This unit will allow all of our prior rooms at Children's Hospital to become single patient, and give us significant additional capacity for peaks in utilization.
Our mid-term goals include enhanced emergency care capacity, a new state-of-the-art Neonatal ICU, a dedicated pediatric surgical unit, and expansion of our administrative space for faculty and trainees. Attaining these goals depends on the construction of a new building on Sabin Street, which will have a large dedicated ER on the 1st functional floor, and a pediatric surgical unit on the 4th floor, which will be contiguous with the current inpatient OR facility. Further, the Sabin Street building and possibly an additional building will be necessary to move all the administrative offices out of the current Children's Hospital building. Next, all pediatric cardiology services will move to the 5th floor of the Children's Hospital, and finally, a new NICU will be built in the entire 6th floor of the building.
Clearly, for the long term, our goal is a new stand-alone Children's Hospital. An early planning process for that long term has begun, but much more work remains to be done. One way or another, a state-of-the-art facility for children lies in our future.
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J. Philip Saul, MD
Medical Director
Director, Pediatric Cardiology |
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